Full text of "A treatise on the theory and practice of landscape gardening, adapted to North America; with a view to the improvement of country residences. Comprising historical notices and general principles of the art, directions for laying out grounds and arranging plantations, the description and cultivation of hardy trees, decorative accompaniments to the house and grounds, the formation of pieces of artificial water, flower gardens, etc. With remarks on rural architecture"

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A
TREATISE

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE

LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ADAPTED TO

NORTH AMERICA;

WITH A VIEW TO

THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY RESIDENCES.

COMPRISING

HISTORICAL NOTICES AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE ART,
DIRECTIONS FUR LAYING OUT GROUNDS AND ARRANGING PLANTATIONS,
THE DESCRIPTION AND CULTIVATION OF HARDY TREES,
DECORATIVE ACCOMPANIMENTS TO THE HOUSE AND GROUNDS,

THE FORMATION OF PIECES OF ARTIFICIAL WATER, FLOWER GARDENS, ETC.

WITH REMARKS ON

RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

Fourth Edition,

ENLARGED, REVISED, AND NEWLY ILLUSTRATED.

enn

ees y x: .
BY At 3 DOWNING,
AUTHOR OF DESIGNS FOR COTTAGE RESIDENCES, ETC.

new

“Tnsult not Nature with absurd expense,
Nor spoil her simple charms by vain pretence ;
Weigh well the subject, be with caution bold,
Profuse of genius, not profuse of gold.”’

NEW YORK:
GEORGE P. PUTNAM, 155 BROADWAY.
LONDON:
‘ LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN & LONGMANS.

SUP'G. ARCH'T: |
TREASURY /
DEPT, /

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MAR 41 1944
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EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 5

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“I3 RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATED, | ‘en
BY HIS FRIEND, a :
3 THE AUTHOR,
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PREFACE
TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

Ir is even more gratifying to the author of this work to
know, from actual observation, that the public taste in
Rural Embellishment has, within a few years past, made
the most rapid progress in this country, than to feel assured
by the call for a fourth edition, that his own imperfect
labors for the accomplishment of that end have been most
kindly appreciated.

In the present edition considerable alterations and
amendments have been made in some portions—especially
in that section relating to the nature of the Beautiful and
the Picturesque. The difference among critics regarding
natural expression and its reproduction in Landscape
Gardening, has led him more carefully to examine this
part of the subject, in order, if possible, to present it in
the clearest and most definite manner.

The whole work has also been revised, and more
copiously illustrated, and is now offered in a more com-

plete form than in any previous edition.

As
Newburgh, New York, Jan. 1849.

PREFACE.

A vaste for rural improvements of every description
is advancing silently, but with great rapidity in this country.
While yet in the far west the pioneer constructs his rude
hut of logs for a dwelling, and sweeps away with his axe
the lofty forest trees that encumber the ground, in the
older portions of the Union, bordering the Atlantic, we
are surrounded by all the luxuries and refinements that
belong to an old and long cultivated country. Within the
last ten years, especially, the evidences of the growing
wealth and prosperity of our citizens have become
apparent in the great increase of elegant cottage and villa
residences on the banks of our noble rivers, along our
rich valleys, and wherever nature seems to invite us by
her rich and varied charms.

In all the expenditure of means in these improvements,
amounting in the aggregate to an immense sum, pro-
fessional talent is seldom employed in Architecture or
Landscape Gardening, but almost every man fancies
himself an amateur, and endeavors to plan and arrange his
own residence. With but little practical knowledge, and
few correct principles for his guidance, it is not surprising
that we witness much incongruity and great waste of time
and money. Even those who are familiar with foreign
works on the subject in question labor under many
obstacles in practice, which grow out of the difference in
our soil and climate, or our social and political position.

These views have so often presented themselves to me of
late, and have been so frequently urged by persons
desiring advice, that I have ventured to prepare the present
volume, in the hope of supplying, in some degree, the

Vill PREFACE.

desideratum so much felt at present. While we have
treatises, in abundance, on the various departments of the
arts and sciences, there has not appeared even a single
essay on the elegant art of Landscape Gardening. Hun-
dreds of individuals who wish to ornament their grounds
and embellish their places, are at a loss how to proceed,
from the want of some leading principles, with the
knowledge of which they would find it comparatively easy
to produce delightful and satisfactory results.

In the following pages I have attempted to trace out
such principles, and to suggest practicable methods of
embellishing our Rural Residences, on a scale com-
mensurate to the views and means of our proprietors.
While I have availed myself of the works of European
authors, and especially those of Britain, where Landscape
Gardening was first raised to the rank of a fine art, I have
also endeavored to adapt my suggestions especially to this
country and to the peculiar wants of its inhabitants.

As a people descended from the English stock, we
inherit much of the ardent love of rural life and its pursuits
which belongs to that nation ; but our peculiar position, in
a new world that required a population full of enterprise
and energy to subdue and improve its vast territory, has,
until lately, left but little time to cultivate a taste for Rural
Embellishment. But in the older states, as wealth has
accumulated, the country become populous, and society
more fixed in its character, a return to those simple and
fascinating enjoyments to be found in country life and
rural pursuits, is witnessed on every side. And to this
innate feeling, out of which grows a strong attachment to
natal soil, we must look for a counterpoise to the great
tendency towards constant change, and the restless spirit
of emigration, which form part of our national character ;
and which, though to a certain extent highly necessary to
our national prosperity, are, on the other hand, opposed to
social and domestic happiness. “In the midst of the
continual movement which agitates a democratic com-
munity,’ says the most philosophical writer who has yet
discussed our institutions, “the tie which unites one
generation to another is relaxed or broken ; every man

PREFACE. — ix

readily loses the trace of the ideas of his forefathers, or
takes no care about them.”

The love of country is inseparably connected with the
love of home. Whatever, therefore, leads man to assemble
the comforts and elegancies of life around his habitation,
tends to increase local attachments, and render domestic
life more delightful; thus not only augmenting his own
enjoyment, but strengthening his patriotism, and making
him a better citizen. And there is no employment or
recreation which affords the mind greater or more
permanent satisfaction, than that of cultivating the earth
and adorning our own property. “God Almighty first
planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest of human
pleasures,” says Lord Bacon. And as the first man was
shut out from the garden, in the cultivation of which no
alloy was mixed with his happiness, the desire to return to
it seems to be implanted by nature, more or less strongly,
in every heart.

In Landscape Gardening the country gentleman of
leisure finds a resource of the most agreeable nature.
While there is no more rational pleasure than that derived
from its practice by him, who

« Plucks life’s roses in his quiet fields,”

the enjoyment drawn from it (unlike many other amuse-
ments) is unembittered by the after recollection of pain
or injury inflicted on others, or the loss of moral rectitude.
In rendering his home more beautiful, he not only con-
tributes to the happiness of his own family, but improves
the taste, and adds loveliness to the country at large.
There is, perhaps, something exclusive in the taste for
some of the fine arts. <A collection of pictures, for
example, is comparatively shut up from the world, in the
private gallery. But the sylvan and floral collections,—
the groves and gardens, which surround the country
residence of the man of taste,—are confined by no
barriers narrower than the blue heaven above and
around them. ‘The taste and the treasures, gradually, but
certainly, creep beyond the nominal boundaries of the

x PREFACE.

‘

estate, and re-appear in the pot of flowers in the window,
or the luxuriant, blossoming vines which clamber over the
porch of the humblest cottage by the way side.

In the present volume I have sought, by rendering
familiar to the reader most of the beautiful sylvan ma-
terials of the art, and by describing their peculiar effects
in Landscape Gardening, to encourage a taste among
general readers. And I have also endeavored to place
before the amateur such directions and guiding principles
as, it is hoped, will assist him materially in laying out
his grounds and arranging the general scenery of his
residence.

The lively interest of late manifested in Rural Architec-
ture, and its close connexion with Landscape Gardening,
have induced me to devote a portion of this work to the
consideration of buildings in rural scenery.

I take pleasure in acknowledging my obligations and
returning thanks to my valued correspondent, J. C. Loudon,
Esq., F. L. S., ete., of London, the most distinguished
gardening author of the age, for the illustrations and
description of the English Suburban Cottage in the
Appendix; to the several gentlemen in this country who
have kindly furnished me with plans or drawings of their
residences ; and to A. J. Davis, Esq., of New York, and J.
Notman, Esq., of Philadelphia, architects, for architectural
drawings and descriptions.

CONTENTS.

SECTION I.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES.

Objects of the art, page 18. The ancient and modern styles, p. 21. Their
peculiarities, p. 23. Origin of the modern and natural style, p. 31. Influence
of the English poets and writers, p. 32. _ Examples of the art abroad, p. 38.

_ Landseape Gardening in North America, and examples now existing, p. 40.

SECTION II.

BEAUTIES OF LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Capacities of the art, p. 61. The beauties of the ancient style, p. 62.
The Beautiful and the Picturesque; their distinctive characteristics, with
illustrations drawn from nature and painting, p. 63. Nature and principles of
Landscape Gardening as an imitative art, p. 66.. The Production of Beautiful
Landscape, 67. Of Picturesque do., 68. Simple beauty of the art, p. 78.
The principles of Unity, Harmony, and Variety, p. 80.

SECTION III.

WOOD AND PLANTATIONS.

The beauty of trees in rural embellishments, p. 85. Pleasure resulting from
their cultivation, p. 88. Plantations in the ancient style ; their formality, p.
89. Inthe modern style, p. 94. Grouping trees, p. 95. Arrangement and
grouping in the Graceful school, p. 101. In the Picturesque school, p. 102.

xii CONTENTS.

Illustrations in planting villa, ferme ornée, and cottage grounds, p. 113.
General classification of trees as to forms, with leading characteristics of each
class, p. 123.

SECTION IV.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES.

The history and description of all the finest hardy deciduous trees. Re-
marks on their effects in Landscape Gardening, individually, and in composi-
tion ; their cultivation, ete. The oak, p. 139. The elm, p. 152. The plane or
buttonwood, p. 158. The ash, p. 162. The lime or linden, p. 167. The
beech, p. 171. The poplar, p. 175. The horse chestnut, p. 181. The
birch, p. 184. The alder, p. 189. The maple, p.191. The loeust, p. 196.
The three-thorned acacia, p. 200. The Judas tree, p. 202. The chestnut, p.
204. The Osage orange, p. 209. The mulberry, p. 211. The paper-mul-
berry, p. 214. The sweet gum, p. 215. The walnut, p. 218. The hickory,
p- 222. The mountain ash, p. 226. The ailantus, p. 230. The Kentucky
coffee, p. 232. The willow, p. 234. The sassafras, p. 241. The catalpa, p.
242. The persimon, p. 244. The peperidge, p. 246. The thorn, p. 248.
The magnolia, p. 250. The tulip-tree, p. 255. The dogwood,p. 259. The
ginko, p. 261. The American cypress, p. 264. The larch, p. 268. The
Virgilia, p. 276. The Paulownia, p. 278.

SECTION V.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES.

The history and description of all the finest hardy evergreen trees. Re-
marks on their effects in Landscape Gardening, individually and in composi-
tion. Their cultivation, ete. The pines, p. 280. The firs, p. 290. The
cedar of Lebanon, and Deodar cedar, p. 296.' The red cedar, p. 300. The
arbor vite, p. 301. The holly, p. 304. The yew, p. 306.

SECTION VI.

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS.

Value of this kind of vegetation ;—fine natural effects, p. 312. The
European ivy, p. 316. The Virginia creeper, p. 316. The wild grape-vine,
p. 317. The bittersweet—the trumpet creeper, p. 317. The pipe vine, p.

CONTENTS. xill

318. The clematis,—the’ wistaria, p. 319. The honeysuckles and wood-
bines, p. 320. The climbing roses, p. 322. The jasmine and periploca, p.
323. Remarks on the proper mode of introducing vines, p. 324. Beautiful
effects of climbing plants in connexion with buildings, p. 325.

SECTION VII.

TREATMENT OF GROUND—FORMATION OF WALKS.

Nature of operations on ground, p. 327. Treatment of flowing and of
irregular surfaces to heighten their expression, p. 328,—of flats or level
surfaces, p. 331. Rocks, as materials in landscape, p. 334. Laying out
roads and walks; the approach, p. 336. Rules by Repton, p. 339. The
drive and minor walks, p. 341. The introduction of fences, p. 343. Ver-
dant hedges, p. 344.

. SECTION VIII.
TREATMENT OF WATER.

Beautiful effects of this element in nature, p. 347. In what cases it is de-
sirable to attempt the formation of artificial pieces of water, p. 348. Regular
forms unpleasing, p. 350. Directions for the formation of ponds or lakes in
the irregular manner, p. 351. Study of natural lakes, 352. Islands, p. 358.
Planting the margin, p. 360. Treatment of natural brooks and rivulets, p.
363. Cascades and water-falls, 364. Legitimate sphere of the art in this
department, p. 366.

SECTION IX.

LANDSCAPE OR RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

Difference between a city and country house, p. 369. The characteristic
features of a country house, p. 370. Examination of the leading principles in
Rural Architecture, p. 371. The harmonious union of buildings and scenery,
377. The different styles, p. 380. The Grecian style, its merits and associa-
tions, p. 381. Its defects for domestic purposes, p. 382. The Roman style.

The Italian style, p. 385 ;—its peculiar features, and examples in this country,

p. 388. Associations of the Italian style, p. 390. Swiss style, p. 392. The
pointed or Gothic style—leading features, p. 693. Castellated buildings, p.
396. The Tudor mansion, p. 398. Examples here, p. 400.. The Eliza-

X1V CONTENTS.

bethan style, p. 401. The old English cottage,—its features, p. 402. Asso-
ciations of the pointed style, p. 405. Examples in this country, p. 409.
Individual tastes, p. 411. Entrance lodges, p. 412.

‘

SECTION X.

EMBELLISHMENTS ; ARCHITECTURAL, RUSTIC, AND FLORAL.

Value of a proper connexion between the house and grounds, p. 419.
Beauty of the architectural terrace, and its application to villas and cottages, p-
420. Use of vases of different descriptions, p. 424. Sundials, p. 427.
Architectural flower-garden, p. 428. Irregular flower-garden, p. 429.
French flower-garden, p. 430. English flower-garden, p. 430. Mingled
flower-garden, p. 437. General remarks on this subject, p. 437. Selec-
tions of showy plants, flowering in succession, p. 438. Arrangement of
the shrubbery, and selection of choice shrubs, p. 442. The conservatory and
green-house, 448. Open and covered seats, p. 454. Pavilions, p.456. Rus-
tic seats, p. 456. Prospect towers, p. 459. Bridges, p. 460. Rockwork, p.
461. Fountains of various descriptions, p. 466. Judicious introduction of

decorations, p. 472.

AP Pe hea a

I. Notes on transplanting trees, p. 475. Reasons for frequent failures in
removing large trees, p. 476. Directions for performing this operation, p.
478. Selection of subjects, p. 479. Preparing trees for removal, p. 481.
Transplanting evergreens, p. 482.

II. Deseription of an English suburban residence, Cheshunt Cottage, p.
484. With views and plans showing the arrangement of the house and
grounds, p. 485. And mode of managing the whole premises, p. 487.

III. Note on the treatment of Lawns, p. 525.

IV. Note on professional quackery, p. 527.

V. Note on roads and walks, p. 530.

OO a

ESSAY ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING,

SECTION I.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES,

Objects of the Art. The ancient and modern styles. Their peculiarities. Sketch of the
ancient style, and the rise and progress of the modern style. Infilnence of the English
poets and writers. Examples of the art abroad. Landseape Gardening in North
America, and examples now existing.

«“ L’un a nos yeux présente
Dun dessein régulier l’ordonnance imposante,
Préte aux champs des beautés qu’ils ne connaissaicnt pas,
Dune pompe étrangére embellit leur appas,
Donne aux arbres des lois, aux ondes des entraves,
Et, despote orgueilleux, brille entouré desclaves ;
Son air est moins riant et plus majestueux,
Fautre, de la nature amant respectueux,
L’orne sans la farder, traite avec indulgence
Ses caprices charmants, sa noble négligence,

Sa marche irréguliere, et fait naitre avec art
Des beautés du désordre, et méme du hasard.”’

Denix.

ee
=

* UR first, most

endearing, and
most sacred associations,” says the amiable Mrs. Hofland,

“are connected with gardens; our most simple and most
2

18 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

refined perceptions of beauty are combined with them.”
And we may add to this, that Landscape Gardening, which
is an artistical combination of the beautiful in nature and
art—an union of natural expression and harmonious culti-
vation—is capable of affording us the highest and most in-
tellectual enjoyment to be found. in any cares or pleasures
belonging to the soil.

The development of the Beautiful is the end and aim of
Landscape Gardening, as it is of all other fine arts. The
ancients sought to attain this by a studied and elegant
regularity of design in their gardens ; the moderns, by the
creation or improvement of grounds which, though of limit-
ed extent, exhibit a highly graceful or picturesque epitome
of natural beauty. Landscape Gardening differs from gar-
dening in its common sense, in embracing the whole scene
immediately about a country house, which it softens and
refines, or renders more spirited and striking by the aid of
art. In it we seek to embody our ideal of a rural home ;
not through plots of fruit trees, and beds of choice flowers,
though these have their place, but by collecting and combin-
ing beautiful forms in trees, surfaces of ground, buildings,
and walks, in the landscape surrounding us. It is, in short,
the Beautiful, embodied in a home scene. And we attain
it by the removal or concealment of everything uncouth
and discordant, and by the introduction and preservation of
forms pleasing in their expression, their outlines, and their
fitness for the abode of man. In the orchard, we hope to
gratify the palate ; in the flower garden, the eye and the
smell; but in the landscape garden we appeal to that sense
of the Beautiful and the Perfect, which is one of the high-
est attributes of our nature.

This embellishment of nature, which we call Landscape

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 19

Gardening, springs naturally from a love of country life,
an attachment to a certain spot, and a desire to render
that place attractive—a feeling which seems more or less
strongly fixed in the minds of all men. But we should
convey a false impression, were we to state that it may be
applied with equal success to residences of every class and
size, in the country. Lawn and trees, being its two essen-
tial elements, some of the beauties of Landscape Gardening
may, indeed, be shown wherever a rood of grass surface,
and half a dozen trees are within our reach ; we may, even
with such scanty space, have tasteful grouping, varied sur-
face and agreeably curved walks; but our art, to appear
to advantage, requires some extent of surface—its lines
should lose themselves indefinitely, and unite agreeably and
gradually with those of the surrounding country.

In the case of large landed estates, its capabilities may
be displayed to their full extent, as from fifty to five hun-
dred acres may be devoted to a park or pleasure grounds.
Most of its beauty, and all its charms, may, however, be
enjoyed in ten or twenty acres, fortunately situated, and
well treated ; and Landscape Gardening, in America, com-
bined and working in harmony as it is with our fine
scenery, is already beginning to give us results scarcely less
beautiful than those produced by its finest efforts abroad.
The lovely villa residences of our noble river and lake
margins, when well treated—even in a few acres of taste-
ful fore-ground,—seem so entirely to appropriate the whole
adjacent landscape, and to mingle so sweetly in their out-
lines with the woods, the valleys, and shores around them,
that the effects are often truly enchanting.

But if Landscape Gardening, in its proper sense, cannot
be applied to the embellishment of the smallest cottage

20 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

residences in the country, its principles may be studied
with advantage, even by him who has only three trees to
plant for ornament; and we hope no one will think his
grounds teo small, to feel willing to add something to the
general amount of beauty in the country. If the possessor
of the cottage acre, would embellish in accordance with
propriety, he must not, as we have sometimes seen, render
the whole ridiculous by aiming at ambitious and costly em-
bellishments ; but he will rather seek to delight us by the
good taste evinced in the tasteful simplicity of the whole
arrangement. And if the proprietors of our country villas,
in their improvements, are more likely to run into any one
error than another, we fear it will be that of too great a
desire for display—too many vases, temples, and seats,—
and too little purity and simplicity of general effect.

The inquiring reader will perhaps be glad to have a
glance at the history and progress of the art of tasteful
gardening ; a recurrence to which, as well as to the history
of the fine arts, will afford abundant proof that, in the first
stage or infancy of all these arts, while the perception of
their ultimate capabilities is yet crude and imperfect, man-
kind has, in every instance, been completely satisfied with
the mere exhibition of design or art. Thus in Sculpture,
the first statues were only attempts to imitate rudely the
form of a human figure, or in painting, to represent that of
a tree: the skill of the artist, in effecting an imitation suc-
cessfully, being sufficient to excite the astonishment and
admiration of those who had not yet made such advances
as to enable them to appreciate the superior beauty of
expression.

Landscape Gardening is, indeed, only a modern word,
first coined, we believe, by Shenstone, since the art has

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 21

been based upon natural beauty ; but as an extensively em-
bellished scene, filled with rare trees, fountains, and statues,
may, however artificial, be termed a landscape garden,
the classical gardens are fairly included in a retrospective
view.

All late authors agree in these two distinct and widely
different modes of the art; Ist, the Ancient, Formal, or
Geometric Style ; 2d, the Modern, Natural, or Irregular
Style.

Tue Ancient Sryte. A predominance of regular forms
and right lines is the characteristic feature of the ancient
style of gardening. The value of art, of power, and of
wealth, were at once easily and strongly shown by an arti-
ficial arrangement of all the materials ; an arrangement the
more striking, as it differed most widely from nature. And
in an age when costly and stately architecture was most
abundant, as in the times of the Roman empire, it is natural
to suppose, that the symmetry and studied elegance of the
palace, or the villa, would be transferred and continued in
the surrounding gardens.

Nothing fills so grand a place in the history of the gar-
dening of antiquity, as the great hanging gardens of Baby-
lon. A series of terraces supported by stone pillars, rising
one above the other three hundred feet in height, and
planted with rows of all manner of stately trees, shrubs and
flowers, interspersed with seats, and watered and supplied
with fountains from the Euphrates; all this was indeed a
princely effort of the great king, to recall to his Median
queen the beauties of her native country. The “Paradises”
of the Persians seem not only to have had straight walks
bordered with blossoming trees, and overhung with exqui-
site lines of roses and other odoriferous shrubs, but to have

22 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

been interspersed with occasional thickets, and varied with
fountains, prospect towers, and aviaries for singing birds.

The Athenians borrowed their taste in gardens from
Persia. The lime tree and the box lined their walks, and
bore patiently the shears of symmetry ; and a passion for
fragrant flowers seems to have been greatly indulged
by them. Their most celebrated philosophers made the
sylvan, or landscape gardens of their time, their favorite
schools. And the gardens of Epicurus and Plato appear
to have been symmetrical groves of the olive, plane, and
elm, enriched by elegant statues, monuments, and temples,
the beauty of which, for their peculiar purpose, has never
been surpassed by any example of more modern times.
Among the Romans, ornamental gardening seems to have
been not a little studied. The villas of the Emperors Nero
and Adrian were enriched with everything magnificent
and pleasing in their grounds; and the classically famous
villas of Cicero at Arpinum, and of Pliny at Tusculum,
with Cesar’s

«Private arbors, and new planted orchards,
On this side Tiber,”

are among the most celebrated specimens of the taste,
among the ancients. Pliny’s garden, of which a pretty
minute account remains,—filled with cypresses and bay
trees, planted to form a coursing place or hippodrome,
adorned with vis-a-vis figures of animals cut in box trees,
and decorated with fountains and marble alcoves, shaded
by vines—seems, indeed, to have been the true classical
type of all the later efforts of modern continental nations
in their geometric gardens. |

Of the latter, the Italians have been most successful in

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 23

their ornamental grounds. Their beautiful marbles seem
to have been supplied by Art in too great profusion to be
confined even to the colonnades of their villas, and broad
enriched terraces, vases, and statues, everywhere enliven,
and contrast with, the verdure of the foliage; trees and
plants being often less abundant than the sculptural orna-
ments which they serve to set off to advantage. An island
—Isola Bella—in one of their little lakes, has often been
quoted as the most highly wrought type of the Italian
taste ; “a barren rock,” says a spirited writer, “rising in the
midst of alake, and producing but a few poor lichens, which
has been conveyed into a pyramid of terraces supported on
arches, and ornamented with bays and orange trees of
amazing size and beauty.” The Villa Borghese, at Rome,
is one of the most celebrated later examples, with its
pleasure grounds three miles in circumference, filled with
symmetrical walks, and abounding with an endless pro-
fusion of sculpture.

The old French gardens differ little from those of Italy,
if we except that, with the same formality, they have more
of theatrical display—frequently substituting gilt trellises
and wooden statues for the exquisite marble balustrades
and sculptured ornaments of the Italians. But we must
not forget the crowning glory of the Geometric style, the
gardens of Louis XIV. at Versailles. A prince whose grand
idea of a royal garden was not compassed under two hun-
dred acres devoted to that purpose, and who, when shown
the bills of cost in their formation, amounting to two hun-
dred millions of francs, quietly threw them into the fire,
could scarcely fail, whatever the style of art adopted, in
producing a scene of great splendor. He was fortunate, too,
in his gardener, Le Notre, whose ideas, scarcely less superb

OFFICE
OF THE
ISUP’G. AR

24 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

than those of his master, kept pace so closely with his
fancies, that he received the honor of knighthood, and was
made general director of all the buildings and gardens of
the time.

“The gardens of Versailles,’ says a tasteful English
reviewer, “may indeed be taken as the great exemplar of
this style; and magnificent indeed they are, if expense
and extent and variety suffice to make up magnificence.
To draw petty figures in dwarf-box and elaborate pat-
terns in parti-colored sand, might well be dispensed with
where the formal style was carried out on so grand a scale
as this, but otherwise the designs of Le Notre differ little
from that of his predecessors in the geometric style, save in
their monstrous extent. The great wonder of Versailles
was the well known labyrinth, not such a maze as is really
the source of so much idle amusement at Hampton Court,
but a mere ravel of interminable walks, closely fenced in
with high hedges, in which thirty-nine of Aisop’s fables
were represented by painted copper figures of birds and
beasts, each group connected with a separate fountain, and
all spouting water out of their mouths! Every tree was
planted with geometrical exactness, and parterre answered
to parterre across half a mile of gravel. ‘Such symmetry,’
says Lord Byron, ‘is not for solitude; and certainly, the
gardens of Versailles were not planted with any such in-
tent. The Parisians do not throng there for the contempla-
tion to be found in the ‘trim gardens’ of Milton. There
is indeed a melancholy, but not a pleasing one, in wander-
ing alone, through those many acres of formal hornbeam,
when we feel that it requires the ‘galliard and clinquant’
air of a scene of Watteau ; its crowds and love-making—its

hoops and minuets—a ringing laugh and merry tamborine

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 25

—to make us recognise the real genius of the place.
Taking Versailles on the gigantic type of the French
school it need scarcely be said that it embraces broad
gravelled terraces, long alleys of yew and hornbeam, vast
orangeries, groves planted in the quincunx style, and
water-works embellished with, and conducted through
every variety of sculptured ornament. It takes the middle
line between the other two geometric schools—admitting
more sculpture and other works of art than the Italian, but
not overpowered with the same number of ‘huge masses
of littleness’ as the Dutch. There is more of promenade,
less of parterre; more gravel than turf; more of the de-
ciduous than the evergreen tree. The practical water-wit
of drenching the spectators was in high vogue in the
ancient French gardens; and Evelyn, in his account of
the Duke de Richelieu’s villa, describes with some relish
how ‘on going, two extravagant musketeers shot at us
with a stream of water from their musket barrels.” Con-
trivances for dousing the visitors—‘ especially the ladies’-—
which once filled so large a space in the catalogue of every
show place, seem to militate a little against the national
character of gallantry; but the very fact that everything
was done to surprise the spectator and stranger, evinces
how different was their idea of a garden from the home and
familiar pleasures which an Englishman looks to in his.”
It is scarcely necessary for us to say, that this new splen-
dor of the French in their gardens was more or less copied,
at the time, all over Europe. “ Ainsi font les Francais—
voila ce que j'ai vu en France,” was the law of fashion in
the gardening taste from which there was no higher court
of appeal. But, in copying, every nation seems to have
mingled with the “grand style” some elementary notions

26 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of its own, expressive of national character or locality.
The most marked of these imitators were the Dutch,
whose style of ornamental gardening seems sufficiently
unique to be worthy of being considered a separate school.

And how shall we characterize the Dutch school, which
even to this day, in the Low Countries, has scarcely given
way to the continental admiration for the “jardin Anglais ;”
this double distilled compound of labored symmetry, regu-
larity, and stiffness, which seems to conyey to the quiet own-
ers so much pleasure, and to the tasteful traveller and critic
so much despair! A stagnant and muddy canal, with a bridge
thrown over it, and often connected with a circular fish-
pond; a grass slope and a mound of green turf, on which
is a pleasure or banqueting house with gilt ornaments ; num-
berless clipped trees, and every variety of trellis-work lively
with green paint; in the foreground beds of gay bulbs and
florists’ flowers, interspersed with huge orange trees in tubs,
and in the distance smooth green meadows—such are the
unvarying features of the Hollander’s garden or grounds.*
The true Dutchman looks upon his garden as a quiet place
to smoke and be “content” in; if he lazily saunters through,
it is rather to enjoy the gay pencillings of some new bed of
tulips than to enjoy the elegance and harmony of its design,
the variety of scenery, or the freshness and beauty of the
foliage. At the same time, he is neither exclusive nor secret
with the stores of enjoyment which he has within its bounds ;
and very many of the private villas near Rotterdam, and in

other parts of Holland, have mottoes like those inscribed

* In the neighborhood of Antwerp, not a long time since, was the villa
of M. Smetz, where, among many things that were pretty, was the odd con-
ceit of a lawn on which were a shepherd, his flock of sheep, and his dog
cut in stone, and always looking “ pastoral and country like.”

HISTORICAL NOTICRS. 27

over the gateways—“ Tranquil and Content,” “My desire
is satisfied ”—(genegentheiel is volden)—* Friendship and
sociability,” and numerous others of a similar import.

As modern landscape gardening owes its existence al-
most entirely to the English, we must take a rapid glance
at the early condition of the art in Great Britain, and its
subsequent development to the present time.

It would appear to be an undeniable fact in the history
of ornamental gardening that, from the time of William the
Conqueror down to the latter part of the reign of Queen
Anne, and the beginning of that of George I., nothing was
considered garden scenery except it was in the formal and
geometric style.

The royal gardens of Henry VIII., at Nonsuch Palace,
laid out in the beginning of the sixteenth century, may per-
haps be taken as a type of the highest ideal of a garden at
that period. Heutzner, in speaking of this place, after
describing it as abounding in every species of costly mag-

nificence, adds,—

«This, which no equal has in art or fame,
Britons deservedly do Nonsuch name.”

Loudon remarks that “these gardens are stated, in a
survey taken in the year 1650, above a century after
Henry’s death, to have been cut and divided into several
alleys, compartments, and rounds, set about with thorn
hedges. On the north side was a kitchen garden, very
commodious, and surrounded with a wall fourteen feet high.
On the west was a wilderness severed from the little park
by a hedge, the whole containing ten acres. In the privy
gardens were fountains and basins of marble, one of which
is ‘set round with six lilac trees, which trees bear no fruit,

28 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

but only a pleasant smell.’ In the kitchen garden were
seventy-two fruit trees and one lime tree. Lastly, before
the palace, was a neat handsome bowling-green, surrounded
with a balustrade of freestone.” Another writer, describing
Nonsuch when in perfection, says, “In the pleasure and
artificial gardens are many columns and pyramids of mar-
ble, two fountains that spout water, one round and the
other like a pyramid, upon which are perched small birds
that stream water out of their bills. There is besides
another pyramid of marble full of concealed pipes, which
spirt upon all who come within their reach.”

F In the reign of Elizabeth “ trim gardens” seem to have
been in high favor. Hatfield was one of the great estates
of that period, and its gardens were described as “ surround-
ed by a piece of water, with boats rowing through alleys of
well cut trees, and labarynths made with great labor.
There are jets d’eau, and a summer house, with many
pleasant and fair fish ponds.” The Gardener’s Labarynth,
a work intended to direct the taste of that day (1571),
gives plates of “knotts and mazes curiously handled for
the beautifying of gardens.”

During the reign of James I. many fine country seats
were either created or improved. Both the descriptions
and the engravings of gardens of that period agree in pla-
cing before us grounds surrounded by high walls, divided
into regular squares, compartments, or parterres, and orna-
mented with all kinds of trained and clipped trees, inter-
spersed with statues—and, in the finest examples, not
omitting that delightful puzzle of the time a “labarynth.”

Lord Bacon attempted to reform the national taste
during this reign, but apparently with little immediate
success. He wished still to retain shorn trees and hedges,

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 29

but proposed winter or evergreen gardens, and rude or
neglected spots, as specimens of wild nature. “ As for the
making of knots or figures,” says he, “ with divers colored
earths, they be but toys. I do not like images cut out in
juniper or other garden stuff: they are for children.”’*

One gets a condensed idea of the taste of this and the
previous century or two by a work published at Oxford by
Commenius ‘during the Commonwealth. “Gardening,”
says he, “is practised for food’s sake in a kitchen garden
and orchard, or for pleasure’s sake in a green grass-plot and
an arbor.” In his details of the ornamental garden he
adds, “the pleacher (topiarius) prepares a green plat of
the more choice flowers and rarer plants, and adorns the
garden with pleach-work ; that is, with pleasant walks and
bowers, &c., te conclude with water-works.” He also in-
forms us, respecting the parks, that “the huntsman
hunteth wild harts, whilst he either allureth them into pit-
falls, or killeth them, and what he gets alive he puts into a
park.”

In the reign of Charles IL the fame of Versailles, the
most superb of all geometric gardens, created a sensation
in England. Le Notre was of course immediately sent for
by this monarch. He planted St. James and Greenwich
parks, and thus aided by royal patronage, inspired the no-
bility with a desire for some of the more splendid formations
of the French school of design. Chatsworth, the magnifi-
cent seat of the Duke of Devonshire, was laid out ina
grandly formal manner, and the Earl of Essex and Lord
Capel were among the foremost to emulate the glories of
Versailles in their country places—the former nobleman

* Encyclopedia of Gardening.

30 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

sending his gardener (Rose) to France, in order to make
himself thoroughly acquainted with all the beauties of that
Royal garden.

The period of William and Mary’s reign was remarkable
for no great deviation from this style, except perhaps in
substituting partially the Dutch formalities—such as iron
trellis-work, clipped yews, and a greater profusion of ver-
dant sculpture. Embroidered parterres and vegetable sculp-
ture are said indeed to have arrived at their highest:
perfection in this period, or towards the year 1700; and
we may get a good notion of the subjects most in vogue,
by an extract from Pope’s keen satire, written as late as
1713. (in the early part of Anne’s reign), when it was be-

ginning to get into disrepute.

Inventory or A Virtuoso Garpener. Adam and Eve
in yew; Adam, a little shattered by the fall of the tree
of knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the serpent,
very flourishing. Noah’s ark in Holly; the ribs a
little damaged for want of water.

The tower of Babel, not yet finished.

St. George, in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will
be in a condition to stick the dragon by next April.

Edward the Black Prince, in cypress.

A pair of giants stunted, to be sold cheap.

An old maid of honor, in wormwood.

A topping Ben Jonson, in laurel.

Divers eminent modern poets, in bays; somewhat
blighted.

A quick set hog, shot up into a poreupine, by being
forgot a week in rainy weather.

A lavender pig, with sage growing in his belly.

Whatever may have been the absurdities of the ancient
style, it is not to be denied that in connexion with highly
decorated architecture, its effect, when in the best taste—
as the Italian—is not only splendid and striking, but highly
suitable and appropriate. Sir Walter Scott, in an essay

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 31

on landscape embellishment, says, “if we approve of Pal-
ladian architecture, the vases and balustrades of Vitruvius,
the enriched entablatures and superb stairs of the Italian
school of gardening, we must not, on this account, be con-
strued as vindicating the paltry imitations of the Dutch,
who clipped yews into monsters of every species, and re-
lieved them with painted wooden figures. The distinction
between the Italian and Dutch is obvious. A stone hewn
into a gracefully ornamented vase or urn, has a value
which it did not before possess: a yew hedge clipped into
a fortification, is only defaced. The one is a production of
art, the other a distortion of nature.”

It must not be forgotten that, during all this period, or
nearly six centuries, parks were common in England.
Henry I. (1100 to 1135) had a park at Woodstock, and
four centuries later, or during the reign of Henry VIL,
Holinshed informs us, that large parks or inclosed forest
portions, several miles in circumference, were so common,
that their number in Kent and Essex alone amounted to
upwards of a hundred.

Although these parks were more devoted to the preser-
vation of game and the pleasures of the chase than to any
other purpose, their existence was, we conceive, not wholly
owing to this cause—but we look upon them as indicating
that love of nature and that desire to retain beautiful por-
tions of it as part of a residence, which form the ground-
work of the taste for the modern or landscape gardening,
since the latter is only an epitome of nature with the
charms judiciously heightened by art.

Tue Mopern Sryte. Down to’the time of Addison,
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, the formal style
reigned triumphant. The gardener, the architect, and the

32 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

sculptor—all lovers of regularity and symmetry, had re-
tained complete mastery of its arrangements. And it is
worthy of more than a passing remark, that when the
change in taste did take place, it emanated from the poet,
the painter, and the tasteful scholar, rather than from the
practical man.

In the poetical imagination, indeed, the ideal type of a
modern landscape garden seems always to have been more
or less shadowed forth. The Vaucluse of Petrarch, Tasso’s
garden of Armida, the vale of Tempe of ‘lian, were all
exquisite conceptions of the modern style. And Milton,
surrounded as he was by the splendid formalities of the
gardens of his time, copied from no existing models, but
feeling that Epzw must have been free and majestic in its
outlines, he drew from his inner sense of the beautiful, and
from nature as he saw her developed in the works of the
Creator. There, the crisped brooks,—

«« With mazy error under pendant shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Aré
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Pour’d forth profuse, on hill and dale and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced, shade
Imbrown’d the noontide bowers; thus was this place
A happy rurai seat of various view.”

But it required more than poetical types to change the
long rooted fashion. The lever of satire needed to be ap-
plied, and the golden links that bind Nature and Art, more
clearly revealed, before the old system could be made to
waver.

The glory and merit of the total revolution which, about
this time, took place in the public taste, belong, it is gene-

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 33

rally conceded, mainly to Addison and Pope. In 1712 ap-
peared Addison’s papers on Imagination, considered with
reference to the works of Nature and Art. With a delicate
and masterly hand, at a time whew he possessed, through
the “Spectator,” the ear of all refined and tasteful Eng-
land, he lifted the veil between the garden and natural
charms, and showed how beautiful were their relations—
how soon the imagination wearies with the stiffness of the
former, and how much grace may be caught from a freer
imitation of the swelling wood and hill.

The next year Pope, who was both a poet and painter,
opened his quiver of satire in the celebrated article on ver-
dant sculpture in the Guardian, where he ridiculed with no
sparing hand the sheared alleys, formal groves, and

‘Statues growing that noble place in,
All heathen goddesses most rare,
Homer, Plutarch, and Nebuchadnezzar,
Standing naked in the open air !”

Pope was a refined and skilful amateur, and his garden
at Twickenham became a celebrated miniature type of the
natural school. In his Epistle to Lord Burlington, he de-
veloped sound principles for the new art ;—the study of
nature ; the genius of the place; and never to lose sight of
good sense ; the latter, a rule which the whimsical follies
of that day in gardening, seemed, doubtless, to render espe-
cially necessary, but which the discordant abortions of am-
bitious, would-be men of taste, prove is one soonest violated
in every succeeding age.

The change in the popular feeling thus created, soon
gave rise to innovations in the practical art. Bridgeman,
the fashionable garden artist of the time, struck, as Horace

3
OFFICE \

OF THE \
SUP’G. ARCH’T'}
TREASURY /

34 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Walpole thinks, by Pope’s criticisms, banished verdant
sculpture from his plans, and introduced bits of forest
scenery in the gardens at Richmond. And Loudon and
Wise, the two noted nurserymen of the day, laid out Kensing-
ton gardens anew in a manner so much more natural as to
elicit the warm commendations of Addison in the Specta-
tor. It is not too much to say that Kent was the leader of
this class. Originally a painter, and the friend of Lord
Burlington, he next devoted himself to the subject, and
was, undoubtedly, the first professional landscape gardener
in the modern style. Previous artists had confined their
efforts within the rigid walls of the garden, but Kent, who
saw in all nature a garden-landscape, demolished the walls,
introduced the ha-ha, and by blending the park and the
garden, substituted for the primness of the old inclosure,
the freedom of the pleasure-ground. His taste seems to
have been partly formed by Pope, and the Twickenham
garden was the prototype of those of Carlton House, Kent’s
chef deuvre. And, notwithstanding his faults, “his tem-
ples, obelisks, and gazabos of every description in the park,
all stuck about in their respective high places,” notwith-
standing that his passion for natural effects led him into the
absurdity of sometimes planting an old dead tree to make
the illusion more perfect, we have no hesitation in accord-
ing to Kent the merit of first fully establishing, in practice,
the reform in taste which Addison and Pope had so com-
pletely developed in theory. ;
Among the landmarks of the progress of the taste, we
must not refuse a passing notice of what seems to have been
an unique and beautiful specimen of the new feeling for
embellished nature—Leasowes, the “sentimental farm” of

Shenstone. From contemporary accounts, it appears to

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 35

have been originally a grazing farm, from which, by taste-
ful arrangement and planting, and pretty walks, seats, root-
house, urns, and appropriate inscriptions, the poet created a
scene of much pastoral and poetical beauty.

The modern style was now running high in popular
favor in England, but the next professor of the art, Brown,
who seems to have been a mannerist not without some sym-
pathy with nature, but not capable of grasping her more
varied and expressive beauties, “Capability” Brown, as he
was nicknamed, saw in every new place great capabilities,
but unfortunately his own mind seems to have furnished
but one model—a round lake, a smooth bare lawn, a clump
of trees and a boundary belt—which he expanded, with few
variations, to suit the compass of an estate of a thousand
acres, or a cottage with afew roods. His works were often
on a grand scale, and he boasted that the Thames would
never forgive him for the rival he had created in the arti-
ficial lake at Blenheim. “The places he altered,” says
Loudon, “are beyond all reckoning. Improvement was the
fashion of the time ; and there was scarcely a country gen-
tleman who did not, on some occasion or other, consult the
gardening idol of the day.” Mason, the poet, praises this
artist, and Horace Walpole apologizes for not praising him.
Daines Barrington says, “Kent hath been succeeded by
Brown, who hath undoubtedly great merit in laying out
pleasure grounds ; but I conceive, that, in some of his plans,
I see traces rather of the kitchen gardener of old Stowe,
than of Poussin, or Claude Lorraine.”

This mannerism gave rise finally, to the celebrated work
On the Picturesque by Sir Uvedale Price, who, in a series
of elegant and masterly essays, pointed out the faults and
follies of this Brown and his imitators, analysed the beau-

36 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

tiful and picturesque in nature and art, and founded a new
school, more spirited and free in its aim, deriving its prin-
ciples directly from nature and painting. These, with
Knight’s elegant Poem, the Landscape, the English Garden
by Mason, and Whately’s Observations on Modern Garden-
ing, all published between 1750 and the beginning of the
year 1800, established the new style firmly in the public
mind. On the Continent, especially in France, though the
old fashioned gardens were not demolished, as in England,
new ones were laid out in accordance with the dawning
taste, and none of the antique establishments were thought
perfect without a spot set apart as a yardin Anglais.

It is not a little remarkable that the Chinese taste in gar-
dening, which was at first made known to the English public
about this time, is by far the nearest previous approach to
the modern style. ‘Some critics, indeed, have asserted that
the English are indebted to it for their ideas of the modern
style. However this may be, and we confess it has very
little weight with us, the harmonious system which the taste
of the English has evolved in the modern style, is at the
present day too far beyond the Chinese manner to admit of
any comparison. The first is imbued with beauty of the
most graceful and agreeable character, based upon nature,
and refined by art; while the latter abounds in puerilities
and whimsical conceits—rocky hills, five feet high—minia-
ture bridges—dwarf oaks, a hundred years old and twenty
inches in altitude—which, whatever may be our admiration
for the curious ingenuity and skill tasked in their produc-
tion, leave on our mind no very favorable impression of the
taste which designed them.

The most distinguished English Landscape Gardeners of
more recent date, are the late Humphrey Repton, who died

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 37

in 1818; and since him John Claudius Loudon, better known
in this country, as the celebrated gardening author. Repton’s
taste in Landscape gardening was cultivated and elegant,
and many of the finest parks and pleasure grounds of
England, at the present day, bear witness to the skill and
harmony of his designs. His published works are full of
instructive hints, and at Cobham Hall, one of the finest
seats in Britain, is an inscription to his memory, by Lord
Darnley. pow

Mr. Loudon’s* writings and labors in tasteful gardening,
are too well known, to render it necessary that we should
do more than allude to them here. Much of what is known
of the art in this country undoubtedly is, more or less
directly, to be referred to the influence of his published
works. Although he is, as it seems to us, somewhat
deficient as an artist in imagination, no previous author
ever deduced, so clearly, sound artistical principles in Land-
scape Gardening and Rural Architecture ; and fitness, good
sense, and beauty, are combined with much unity of feeling
in all his works.

As the modern style owes its origin mainly to the
English, so it has also been developed and carried to its
greatest perfection in the British Islands. The law of
primogeniture, which has there so long existed, in itself,
contributes greatly to the continual improvement and
embellishment of those vast landed estates, that remain
perpetually in the hands of the same family. Magnificent

* While we are revising the second edition, we regret deeply to learn the death
of Mr. Loudon, His herculean labors as an author have at last destroyed him ;
and in his death we lose one who has done more than any other person that
ever lived, to popularize, and render universal, a taste for Gardening and
Domestic Architecture.

38 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

buildings, added to by each succeeding generation, who
often preserve also the ol portions with the most
scrupulous care; wide spread parks, clothed with a thick
velvet turf, which, amid their moist atmosphere, preserves
during great part of the year an emerald greenness—
studded with noble oaks and other forest trees which
number centuries of growth and maturity; these advan-
tages, in the hands of the most intelligent and the
wealthiest aristocracy in the world, have indeed made
almost an entire landscape garden of “merry England.”
Among a ‘nultitude of splendid examples of these noble
residences, we will only refer the reader to the celebrated
Blenheim, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough, where
the lake alone (probably the largest piece of artificial
water in the world) covers a surface of two hundred acres :
Chatsworth, the varied and magnificent seat of the Duke
of Devonshire, where there are scenes illustrative of almost
every style of the art: and Woburn Abbey, the grounds
of which are full of the choicest specimens of trees and
plants, and where the park, like that of Ashbridge,
Arundel Castle, and several other private residences in
England, is only embraced within a circumference of from
ten to twenty miles.

On the continent of Europe, though there are a multi-
tude of examples of the modern style of landscape
gardening, which is there called the Hnglish or natural
style, yet in the neighborhood of many of the capitals,
especially those of the south of Europe, the taste for
the geometric or ancient style of gardening still prevails
to a considerable extent ; partially, no doubt, because that
style admits, with more facility, of those classical and
architectural accompaniments of vases, statues, busts, etc.,

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 39

the passion for which pervades a people rich in ancient and
modern sculptural works of art. Indeed many of the
gardens on the continent are more striking from their
numerous sculpturesque ornaments, interspersed with
fountains and jets-d’eau, than from the beauty or rarity
of their vegetation, or from their arrangement.

In the United States, it is highly improbable that we
shall ever witness such splendid examples of landscape
gardens as those abroad, to which we have alluded. Here
the rights of man are held to be equal; and if there are
no enormous parks, and no class of men whose wealth is
hereditary, there is, at least, what is more gratifying to
the feelings of the philanthropist, the almost entire absence
of a very poor class in the country; while we have, on
the other hand, a large class of independent landholders,
who are able to assemble around them, not only the useful
and convenient, but the agreeable and beautiful, in country
life.

The number of individuals among us who possess wealth
and refinement sufficient to enable them to enjoy the
pleasures of a country life, and who desire in their private
residences so much of the beauties of landscape gardening
and rural embellishment as may be had without any
enormous expenditure of means, is every day increasing.
And although, until lately, a very meagre plan of laying
out the grounds of a residence, was all that we could lay
claim to, yet the taste for elegant rural improvements is
advancing now so rapidly, that we have no hesitation in
predicting that in half a century more, there will exist a
greater number of beautiful villas and country seats of
moderate extent, in the Atlantic States, than in any
country in Europe, England alone excepted. With us, a

40 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

feeling, a taste, or.an improvement, is contagious ; and
once fairly appreciated and established in one portion of
the country, it is disseminated with a celerity that is
indeed wonderful, to every other portion. And though it
is necessarily the case where amateurs of any art are
more numerous than its professors, that there will be, in
devising and carrying plans into execution, many specimens
of bad taste, and perhaps a. sufficient number of efforts to
improve without any real taste whatever, still we are
convinced the effect of our rural embellishments will in
the end be highly agreeable, as a false taste is not likely
to be a permanent one in a community where everything
is so much the subject of criticism.

With regard to the literature and practice of Landscape
Gardening as an art, in North America, almost everything
is yet before us, comparatively little having yet been
done. Almost all the improvements of the grounds of our
finest country residences, have been carried on under the
direction of the proprietors themselves, suggested by their
own good taste, in many instances improved by the study
of European authors, or by a personal inspection of the
finest places abroad. The only American work previously
published which treats directly of Landscape Gardening,
is the American Gardener's Calendar, by Bernard
McMahon of Philadelphia. The only practitioner of the
art, of any note, was the late M. Parmentier of Brooklyn,
Long Island.

M. André Parmentier was the brother of that celebrated
horticulturist, the Chevalier Parmentier, Mayor of Enghien,
Holland. He emigrated to this country about the year
1824, and in the Horticultural Nurseries which he esta-

blished at Brooklyn, he gave a specimen of the natural

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 4l

style of laying out grounds, combined with a scientific
arrangement of plants, which excited public curiosity, and
contributed not a little to the dissemination of a taste for
the natural mode of landscape gardening.

During M. Parmentier’s residence on Long Island, he
was almost constantly applied to for plans for laying out
the grounds of country seats, by persons in various parts
of the Union, as well as in the immediate proximity of
New York. In many cases he not only surveyed the
demesne to be improved, but furnished the plants and
trees necessary to carry out his designs. Several plans
were prepared by him for residences of note in the South-
ern States; and two or three places in Upper Canada,
especially near Montreal, were, we believe, laid out by his
own hands and stocked from his nursery grounds. In his
periodical catalogue, he arranged the hardy trees and
shrubs that flourish in this latitude in classes, according to
their height, etc., and published a short treatise on the
superior claims of the natural, over the formal or geome-
tric style of laying out grounds. In short, we consider M.
Parmentier’s labors and examples as having effected,
directly, far more for landscape gardening in America,
than those of any other individual whatever.

The introduction of tasteful gardening in this country
is, of course, of a very recent date. But so long ago as
from 25 to 50 years, there were several country residences
highly remarkable for extent, elegance of arrangement,
and the highest order and keeping. Among these, we
desire especially to record here the celebrated seats of
Chancellor Livingston, Wm. Hamilton, Esq., Theodore
Lyman, Esq., and Judge Peters.

Woodlands, the seat of the Hamilton family, near

42 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Philadelphia, was, so long ago as 1805, highly celebrated
for its gardening beauties. The refined taste and the
wealth of its accomplished owner, were freely lavished in
its improvement and embellishment; and at a time when
the introduction of rare exotics was attended with a vast
deal of risk and trouble, the extensive green-houses and
orangeries of this seat contained all the richest treasures
of the exotic flora, and among other excellent gardeners
employed, was the distinguished botanist Pursh, whose
enthusiastic taste in his favorite science was promoted and
aided by Mr. Hamilton. The extensive pleasure grounds
were judiciously planted, singly and in groups, with a
great variety of the finest species of trees. The attention
of the visitor to this place is now arrested by two very
large specimens of that curious tree, the Japanese Ginko
(Salisburia), 60 or 70 feet high, perhaps the finest in
Europe or America, by the noble magnolias, and the rich
park-like appearance of some of the plantations of the
finest native and foreign oaks. From the recent un-
healthiness of this portion of the Schuylkill, Woodlands
has fallen into decay, but there can be no question that it
was, for a long time, the most tasteful and beautiful
residence in America.

The seat of the late Judge Peters, about five miles from
Philadelphia, was, 80 years ago, a noted specimen of the
ancient school of landscape gardening. Its proprietor had
a most extended reputation as a scientific agriculturist,
and his place was also no less remarkable for the design
and culture of its pleasure-grounds, than for the excellence
of its farm. Long and stately avenues, with vistas
terminated by obelisks, a garden adorned with marble

vases, busts, and statues, and pleasure grounds filled with

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 43

the rarest trees and shrubs, were conspicuous features
here. Some of the latter are now so remarkable as to
attract strongly the attention of the visitor. Among
them, is the chestnut planted by Washington, which
produces the largest and finest fruit; very large hollies ;
and a curious old box-tree much higher than the mansion
near which it stands. But the most striking feature now,
is the still remaining grand old avenue of hemlocks (Abies
canadensis). Many of these trees, which were planted
100 years ago, are now venerable specimens, ninety feet
high, whose huge trunks and wide spread branches are in
many cases densely wreathed and draped with masses of
English Ivy, forming the most picturesque sylvan objects
we ever beheld.

Lemon Hiil, half a mile above the Fairmount water-
works of Philadelphia, was, 20 years ago, the most perfect
specimen of the geometric mode in America, and since its
destruction by the extension of the city. a few years since,.
there is nothing comparable with it, in that style, among
us. All the symmetry, uniformity, and high art of the
old school, were displayed here in artificial plantations,
formal gardens with trellises, grottoes, spring-houses,
temples, statues, and vases, with numerous ponds of water,
jets-d’eau, and other water-works, parterres and an exten-
sive range of hothouses. The effect of this garden was
brilliant and striking; its position, on the lovely banks of
the Schuylkill, admirable; and its liberal proprietor, Mr.
Pratt, by opening it freely to the public, greatly increased
the popular taste in the neighborhood of that city.

On the Hudson, the show place of the last age was the
still interesting Clermont, then the residence of Chancellor
Livingston. Its level or gently undulating lawn, four or

44 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

five miles in length, the rich native woods, and the long
vistas of planted avenues, added to its fine water view,
rendered this a noble place. The mansion, the green-
houses, and the gardens, show something of the French
taste in design, which Mr. Livingston’s residence abroad,
at the time when that mode was popular, no doubt, led
him to adopt. The finest yellow locusts in America are
now standing in the pleasure-grounds here, and the
gardens contain many specimens of fruit trees, the first of
their sorts introduced into the Union.

Waltham House, about nine miles from Boston, was, 25
years ago, one of the oldest and finest places, as regards
Landscape Gardening. Its owner, the late Hon. T.
Lyman, was a highly-accomplished man, and the grounds
at Waltham House bear witness to a refined and elegant
taste in rural improvement. A fine level park, a mile in
length, enriched with groups of English limes, elms, and
oaks, and rich masses of native wood, watered by a fine
stream and stocked with deer, were the leading features
of the place at that time; and this, and Woodlands, were
the two best specimens of the modern style, as Judge
Peters’ seat, Lemon Hill, and Clermont, were of the an-
cient style, in the earliest period of the history of Land-
scape Gardening among us.

There is no part of the Union where the taste in Land-
scape Gardening is so far advanced, as on the middle por-
tion of the Hudson. The natural scenery is of the finest
character, and places but a mile or two apart often
possess, from the constantly varying forms of the water,
shores, and distant hills, widely different kinds of home
landscape and distant view. Standing in the grounds of
some of the finest of these seats, the eye beholds only the

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 45

soft foreground of smooth lawn, the rich groups of trees
shutting out all neighboring tracts, the lake-like expanse
of water, and, closing the distance, a fine range of wooded
mountain. <A residence here of but a hundred acres, so
fortunately are these disposed by nature, seems to appro-
priate the whole scenery round, and to be a thousand in
extent.

At the present time, our handsome villa residences are
becoming every day more numerous, and it would require
much more space than our present limits, to enumerate
all the tasteful rural country places within our knowledge,
many of which have been newly laid out, or greatly im-
proved within a few years. But we consider it so im-
portant and instructive to the novice in the art of Land-
scape Gardening to examine, personally, country seats of
a highly tasteful character, that we shall venture to refer
the reader to a few of those which have now a reputation
among us as elegant country residences.

Hyde Park, on the Hudson, formerly the seat of the late
Dr. Hosack, now of W. Langdon, Esq., has been justly
celebrated as one of the finest specimens of the modern
style of Landscape Gardening in America. Nature has,
indeed, done much for this place, as the grounds are finely
varied, beautifully watered by a lively stream, and the
views are inexpressibly striking from the neighborhood of
the house itself, including, as they do, the noble Hudson
for sixty miles in its course, through rich valleys and bold
mountains. (See Fig. 1.) But the efforts of art are not
unworthy so rare a locality ; and while the native woods,
and beautifully undulating surface, are preserved in their
original state, the pleasure-grounds, roads, walks, drives,
and new plantations,-have been laid out in such a judi-

OFFICE

OF TH
SU PIG Ak
TREAS

46 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

cious manner as to heighten the charms of nature. Large
and costly hot-houses were erected by Dr. Hosack, with
also entrance lodges at two points on the estate, a fine
bridge over the stream, and numerous pavilions and seats
commanding extensive prospects; in short, nothing was
spared to render this a complete residence. The park,
which at one time contained some fine deer, afforded a de-
lightful drive within itself, as the whole estate numbered
about seven hundred acres. The plans for laying out the
grounds were furnished by Parmentier, and architects from
New York were employed in designing and erecting the
buildings. For a long time, this was the finest seat in
America, but there are now many rivals to this claim.

The Manor of Livingston, the seat of Mrs. Mary Living-
ston, is seven miles east of the city of Hudson. The
mansion stands in the midst of a fine park, rising gradually
from the level of a rich inland country, and commanding
prospects for sixty miles around. The park is, perhaps,
the most remarkable in America, for the noble simplicity of
its character, and the perfect order in which it is kept.
The turf is, everywhere, short and velvet-like, the gravel-
roads scrupulously firm and smooth, and near the house
are the largest and most superb evergreens. . The mansion
is one of the chastest specimens of the Grecian style, and
there is an air of great dignity about the whole demesne.
(Fig. 2.)

Blithewood, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., near Barry-
town on the Hudson, is one of the most charming villa
residences in the Union. The natural scenery here, is
nowhere surpassed in its enchanting union of softness and
dignity—the river being four miles wide, its placid bosom
broken only by islands and gleaming sails, and the horizon

ry ' "7 2 ha b
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Fig. 8. Montgomery Place, Seat of Mrs. Edward Livingston.

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 47

grandly closing in with the tall blue summits of the distant
Kaatskills. The smiling, gently varied lawn is studded
with groups and masses of fine forest and ornamental
trees, beneath which are walks leading in easy curves to
rustic seats, and summer houses placed in secluded spots,
or to openings affording most lovely prospects. (See
Frontispiece.) In various situations near the house and
upon the lawn, sculptured vases of Maltese stone are also
disposed in such a manner as to give a refined and classic
air to the grounds.

As a pendant to this graceful landscape, there is within
the grounds scenery of an opposite character, equally wild
and picturesque—a fine, bold stream, fringed with woody
banks, and dashing over several rocky cascades, thirty or
forty feet in height, and falling altogether a hundred feet
in half a mile. (See view, Sect. vi.) There are also,
within the grounds, a pretty gardener’s lodge, in the rural
cottage style, and a new entrance lodge by the gate, in the
bracketed mode; in short, we can recall no place of
moderate extent, where nature and tasteful art are both so
harmoniously combined to express grace and elegance.

Montgomery Place (see Fig. 3), the residence of Mrs.
Edward Livingston, which is also situated on the Hudson
near Barrytown, deserves a more extended notice than our
present limits allow, for it is, as a whole, nowhere sur-
passed in America in point of location, natural beauty, or
the landscape gardening charms which it exhibits.

It is one of our oldest improved country seats, having
been originally the residence of Gen. Montgomery, the hero
of Quebec. On the death of his widow it passed into the
hands of her brother, Edward Livingston, Esq., the late
minister to France, and up to the present moment has

48 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

always received the most tasteful and judicious treat-
ment.

The lover of the expressive in nature, or the beautiful in
art, will find here innumerable subjects for his study.
The natural scenery in many portions approaches the cha-
racter of grandeur, and the foreground of rich woods and
lawns, stretching out on all sides of the mountain, completes
a home landscape of dignified and elegant seclusion, rarely
surpassed in any country.

Among the fine features of this estate are the wilder-
ness, a richly wooded and highly picturesque valley, filled
with the richest growth of trees, and threaded with dark,
intricate, and mazy walks, along which are placed a
variety of rustic
seats (Fig. 4).
This valley is
musical with the
sound of water-
falls, of which
there are several
fine ones in the
bold impetuous
stream = which
finds its course

through the low-
part of the

i[Fig. 4. fa Hh the Rustic Been ih cea Place] €F
wilderness. Near the further end of the valley is a beauti-
ful lake (Fig. 5), half of which lies cool and dark under the
shadow of tall trees, while the other half gleams in the
open sunlight.

In a part of the lawn, near the house, yet so surrounded
by a dark setting of trees and shrubs as to form a rich

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 49

picture by itself, is one of the most perfect flower gardens
in the country, laid out in the arabesque manner, and glow-
ing with masses of the gayest colors—each bed being com-
posed wholly of a single hue. A large conservatory, an
exotic garden, an arboretum, etc., are among the features
of interest in this admirable residence. Including a drive
through a fine bit of natural wood, south of the mansion,
there are five miles of highly varied and picturesque pri-
vate roads and walks, through the pleasure-grounds of

Montgomery Place.
GRY > ~A>

= ‘ URSA KS Ima

—lQS—_

{Fig.5. The Lake at Montgomery Place.)

Ellerslie is the seat of William Kelly, Esq. It is three
miles below Rhinebeck. It comprises over six hundred
acres, and is one of our finest examples of high keeping
and good management, both in an ornamental and an
agricultural point of view. The house is conspicuously
placed on a commanding natural terrace, with a fair fore-
ground of park surface below it, studded with beautiful

groups of elms and oaks, and a very fine reach of river and
4

50 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

distant hills. This is one of the most celebrated places on
the Hudson, and there are few that so well pay the lover
of improved landscape for a visit.

Just below Ellerslie are the fine mansion and pleasing
grounds of Wm. Emmet, Esq.,—the former a stone edifice,
in the castellated style, and the latter forming a most
agreeable point on the margin of the river.

The seat of Gardiner Howland, Esq., near New Ham-
burgh, is not only beautiful'in situation, but is laid out
with great care, and is especially remarkable for the many
rare trees and shrubs collected in its grounds.

Wodenethe, near Fishkill landing, is the seat of H. W.
Sargent, Esq., and is a bijou full of interest for the lover of
rural beauty ; abounding in rare trees, shrubs, and plants,
as well as vases, and objects of rural embellishment of all
kinds. . ;

Kenwood (Fig. 6), the residence of J. Rathbone, Esq., is
one mile south of Albany. Ten years ago this spot was a
wild and densely wooded hill, almost inaccessible. With
great taste and industry Mr. Rathbone has converted it
into a country residence of much picturesque beauty,
erected in the Tudor style, one of the best villas in the
country, with a gate-lodge in the same mode, and laid out
the grounds with remarkable skill and good taste. There
are about 1200 acres in this estate, and pleasure grounds,
forcing houses, and gardens, are now flourishing where all
was so lately in the rudest state of nature; while, by the
judicious preservation of natural wood, the effect of a long
cultivated demesne has been given to the whole.

The Manor House of the “ Patroon” (as the eldest son
of the Van Rensselaer family is called) is in the northern

suburbs of the city of Albany. The mansion, greatly

Hy) a\cunnnson $©

Kenwood, Residence of J Rathbone, Esq near Albany. N, Y.

Fig. 9.

Po hee

here | ch

ary

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» Ps) wae! a? file \ ©
» >e r *
uy my ne fr :
< 5 plied: ; J
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Fig 8. Cottage Residence ot Wm. H. Aspinwall, Esq

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 51

enlarged and improved a few years since, from the designs
of Upjohn, is one of the largest and most admirable in all
respects, to be found in the country, and the pleasure-
grounds in the rear of the house are tasteful and beau-
tiful. ;
Beaverwyck, a little north of Albany, on the opposite
bank of the river, is the seat of Wm. P. Van Rensselaer,
Esq. (Fig. 7.) The whole estate is ten or twelve miles
square, including the village of Bath on the river shore,
and a large farming district. The home residence em-
braces several hundred acres, with a large level lawn,
bordered by highly varied surface of hill and dale. The
mansion, one of the first class, is newly erected from the
plans of Mr. Diaper, and in its interior—its hall with
mosaic floor of polished woods, its marble staircase,
frescoed apartments, and spacious adjoining conservatory
—is perhaps the most splendid in the Union. The grounds
are yet newly laid out, but with much judgment; and siz
or seven miles of winding gravelled roads and walks have
been formed—their boundaries now leading over level
meadows, and now winding through woody dells. The
drives thus afforded, are almost unrivalled in extent and
variety, and give the stranger or guest, an opportunity of
seeing the near and distant views to the best advantage.
At Tarrytown, is the cottage residence of Washington
Irving, which is, in location and accessories, almost the
beau ideal of a cottage ornée. The charming manner in
which the wild foot-paths, in the neighborhood of this
cottage, are conducted among the picturesque dells and
banks, is precisely what one would look for here. A little
below, Mr. Sheldon’s cottage, with its pretty lawn and its
charming brook, is one of the best specimens of this kind

52 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of residence on the river. At Hastings, four or five miles
south, is the agreeable seat of Judge Constant.

About twelve miles from New York, on the Sound, is
Hunter’s Island, the seat of John Hunter, Esq., a place of
much simplicity and dignity of character. The whole
island may be considered an extensive park carpeted with
soft lawn, and studded with noble trees. ‘The mansion is
simple in its exterior, but internally, is filled with rich
treasures of art. The seat of James Munroe, Esq., on the
East river in this neighborhood, abounds with beautiful
trees, and many other features of interest.

The Cottage residence of William H. Aspinwall, Esq., on
Staten Island, is a highly picturesque specimen of Land-
scape Gardening. The house is in the English cottage
style, and from its open lawn in front, the eye takes in a
wide view of the ocean, the Narrows, and the blue hills of
Neversink. In the rear of the cottage, the surface is
much broken and varied, and finely wooded and planted.
In improving this picturesque site, a nice sense of the
charm of natural expression has been evinced; and the
sudden variations from smooth open surface, to wild
wooded banks, with rocky, moss-covered flights of steps,
strike the stranger equally with surprise: and delight. A
charming greenhouse, a knotted flower-garden, and a
pretty, rustic moss-house, are among the interesting points
of this spirited place. (See Fig. 8.)

The seat of the Wadsworth family, at Geneseo, is the
finest in the interior of the state of New York. Nothing,
indeed, can well be more magnificent than the meadow park
at Geneseo. It is more than a thousand acres in extent,
lying on each side of the Genesee river, and is filled with
thousands of the noblest oaks and elms, many of which, but

Seat of Wadsworth Family at Genese

Fig. 9

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 53

more especially the oaks, are such trees as we see in the
pictures of Claude, or our own Durand ; richly developed,
their trunks and branches grand and majestic, their heads
full of breadth and grandeur of outline. (See Fig. 9.)
These oaks, distributed over a nearly level surface, with
the trees disposed either singly or in the finest groups, as
if most tastefully planted centuries ago, are solely the work
of nature; and yet so entirely is the whole like the
grandest planted park, that it is difficult to believe that
all is not the work of some master of art, and intended for
the accompaniment of a magnificent residence. Some of
the trees are five or six hundred years old.

In Connecticut, Monte Video, the seat of Daniel Wads-
worth, Esq., near Hartford, is worthy of commendation, as
it evinces a good deal of beauty in its grounds, and is one
of the most tasteful in the state. The residence of James
Hillhouse, Esq., near New-Haven, is a pleasing specimen
of the simplest kind of Landscape Gardening, where grace-
ful forms of trees, and a gently sloping surface of grass,
are the principal features. The villa of Mr. Whitney,
near New-Haven, is one of the most tastefully managed in
the state. In Maine, the most remarkable seat, as respects
landscape gardening and architecture, is that of Mr. Gav-
diner, of Gardiner.

The environs of Boston are more highly cultivated than
those of any other city in North America. There are here
whole rural neighborhoods of pretty cottages and villas, ad-
mirably cultivated, and, in many cases, tastefully laid out
and planted. The character of even the finest of these
places is, perhaps, somewhat suburban, as compared with
those of the Hudson river, but we regard them as furnish-

54 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ing admirable hints for a class of residence likely to become
more numerous than any other in this country—the taste-
ful suburban cottage. The owner of a small cottage resi-
dence may have almost every kind of beauty and enjoy-
ment in his grounds that the largest estate will afford, so
far as regards the interest of trees and plants, tasteful ar-
rangement, recreation, and occupation. Indeed, we have
little doubt that he, who directs personally the curve of
every walk, selects and plants every shrub and tree, and
watches with solicitude every evidence of beauty and pro-
gress, succeeds in extracting from his tasteful grounds of
half a dozen acres, a more intense degree of pleasure, than
one who is only able to direct and enjoy, in a general
sense, the arrangement of a vast estate.

Belmont, the seat of J. P. Cushing, Esq., is a residence
of more note than any other near Boston; but this is,
chiefly,.on account of the extensive ranges of glass, the
forced fruits, and the high culture of the gardens. A new
and spacious mansion has recently been erected here, and
the pleasure-grounds are agreeably varied with fine groups
and masses of trees and shrubs on a pleasing lawn.
(Fig. 10.)

The seat of Col. Perkins, at Brookline; is one of the
most interesting in this neighborhood. The very beautiful
lawn here, abounds with exquisite trees, finely disposed ;
among them, some larches and Norway firs, with many
other rare trees of uncommon beauty of form. At a short
distance is the villa residence of Theodore Lyman, Esq.,
remarkable for the unusually fine avenue of Elms leading
to the house, and for the beautiful architectural taste dis-
played in the dwelling itself. The seat of the Hon. John

Fig. 10. Belmont Place, near Boston, the Seat of J P. Cushing, Esq.

SA RAAT AAI

Rig. 1] Mr. Dunz Cottage, Mount He lly, N J

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 55

Lowell, at Roxbury, possesses also many interesting gar-
dening features.*

Pine Bank, the Perkins estate, on the border of
Jamaica lake, is one of the most beautiful residences
near Boston. The natural surface of the ground is ex-
ceedingly flowing and graceful, and it is varied by two or
three singular little dimples, or hollows, which add to its
effect. The perfect order of the grounds; the beauty of
the walks, sometimes skirting the smooth open lawn, en-
riched with rare plants and shrubs, and then winding by
the shadowy banks of the water; the soft and quiet cha-
racter of the lake itself—its margin richly fringed with
trees, which conceal here and there a pretty cottage, its
firm clean beach of gravel, and its water of crystal purity ;
all these features make this place a little gem of natural

* We Americans are proyerbially impatient of delay, and a few years in
prospect appear an endless futurity. So much is this the feeling with many,
that we verily believe there are hundreds of our country places, which owe
their bareness and destitution of foliage to the idea, so common, that it requires
“an age” for forest trees to “ grow up.”

The middle-aged man hesitates about the good of planting what he imagines
he shall never see arriving at maturity, and even many who are younger, con-
ceive that it requires more than an ordinary lifetime to rear a fine wood of
planted trees. About two years since, we had the pleasure of visiting the seat
of the late Mr. Lowell, whom we found in a green old age, still enjoying, with
the enthusiasm of youth, the pleasures of Horticulture and a country life. For
the encouragement of those who are ever complaining of the tardy pace with
which the growth of trees advances, we will here record that we accompanied
Mr. L. through a belt of fine woods (skirting part of his residence), nearly half
a mile in length, consisting of almost all our finer hardy trees, many of them
apparently full grown, the whole of which had been planted by him when he
was thirty-two years old. At that time, a solitary elm or two were almost
the only trees upon his estate. We can hardly conceive a more rational source
of pride or enjoyment, than to be able thus to walk, in the decline of years,
beneath the shadow of umbrageous woods and groves, planted by our own
hands, and whose growth has become almost identified with our own pro-
gress and existence.

56 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and artistical harmony, and beauty. Mr. Perkins has just
rebuilt the house, in the style of a French maison de cam-
pagne; and Pine Bank is now adorned with a most
complete residence in the latest continental taste, from
the designs of M. Lémoulnier.

On the other side of the lake is the cottage of Thomas
Lee, Esq. Enthusiastically fond of botany, and gardening
in all its departments, Mr. Lee has here formed a residence
of as much variety and interest as we ever saw in so
moderate a compass—about 20 acres. It is, indeed, not
only a most instructive place to the amateur of landscape
gardening, but to the naturalist and lover of plants. Every
shrub seems placed precisely in the soil and aspect it likes
best, and native and foreign Rhododendrons, Kalmias, and
other rare shrubs, are seen here in the finest condition.
There is a great deal of variety in the surface here, and
while the lawn-front of the house has a polished and
graceful air, one or two other portions are quite picturesque.
Near the entrance gate is an English oak, only fourteen
years planted, now forty feet high.

The whole of this neighborhood of Brookline is a kind
of landscape garden, and there is nothing in America, of
the sort, so inexpressibly charming as the lanes which lead
from one cottage, or villa, to another. No animals are
allowed to run at large, and the open gates, with tempting
vistas and glimpses under the pendent boughs, give it quite
an Arcadian air of rural freedom and enjoyment. These
lanes are clothed with a profusion of trees and wild shrub-
bery, often almost to the carriage tracks, and curve and
wind about, in a manner quite bewildering to the stranger
who attempts to thread them alone; and there are more

hints here for the lover of the picturesque in lanes, than

Mind 7
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—

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 57

we ever saw assembled together in so small a com-
pass.

In the environs of New Bedford are many beautiful resi-
dences. Among these, we desire particularly to notice the
residence of James Arnold, Esq. There is scarcely a small
place in New England, where the pleasure-grounds are so
full of variety, and in such perfect order and keeping, as at
this charming spot; and its winding walks, open bits of
lawn, shrubs and plants grouped on turf, shady bowers,
and rustic seats, all most agreeably combined, render this
a very interesting and instructive suburban seat.

In New Jersey, the grounds of the Count de Survilliers,
at Bordentown, are very extensive ; and although the sur-
face is mostly flat, it has been well varied by extensive
plantations. At Mount Holly, about twenty miles from
Camden, is Mr. Dunn’s unique, semi-oriental cottage, with
a considerable extent of pleasure ground, newly planted,
after the designs of Mr. Notman. (Fig. 11.)

About Philadelphia there are several very interesting
seats on the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill, and
the district between these two rivers.

The country seat of George Sheaff, Esq., one of the most
remarkable in Pennsylvania, in many respects, is twelve
miles north of Philadelphia. The house is a large and re-
spectable mansion of stone, surrounded by pleasure-grounds
and plantations of fine evergreen and deciduous trees. The
conspicuous ornament of the grounds, however, is a mag-
nificent white oak, of enormous size, whose wide stretching
branches, and grand head, gave an air of dignity to the
whole place. (Fig. 12.) Among the sylvan features here,
most interesting, are also the handsome evergreens, chiefly
Balsam or Balm of Gilead firs, some of which are now

58 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

much higher than the mansion. These trees were planted
by Mr. Sheaff twenty-two years ago, and were then so
small, that they were brought by him from Philadelphia,
at various times, in his carriage—a circumstance highly
encouraging to despairing planters, when we reflect how
comparatively slow growing is this tree. This whole es-
tate is a striking example of science, skill, and taste,
applied to a country seat, and there are few in the Union,
taken as a whole, superior to it.*

Cottage residence of Mrs. Camac. This is one of the
most agreeable places within a few miles of Philadelphia.
The house is a picturesque cottage, in the rural gothic
style, with very charming and appropriate pleasure grounds,
comprising many groups and masses of large and finely
grown trees, interspersed with a handsome collection of
shrubs and plants; the whole very tastefully arranged.
(Fig. 13.) The lawn is prettily varied in surface, and
there is a conservatory attached to the house, in which the
plants in pots are hidden in beds of soft green moss, and
which, in its whole effect and management, is more tasteful
and elegant than any plant house, connected with a dwell-
ing, that we remember to have seen.

* The farm is 300 acres in extent, and, in the time of De Witt Clinton, was
pronounced by him the model farm of the United States. At the present time
we know nc‘hing superior to it; and Capt. Barelay, in his agricultural tour, says
it was the only instance of regular, scientific system of husbandry in the Eng-
lish manner, he saw in America. Indeed, the large and regular fields, filled
with luxuriant crops, everywhere of an exact evenness of growth, and every-
where free from weeds of any sort ; the perfect system of manuring and cul-
ture ; the simple and complete fences; the fine stock ; the very spacious barns,
every season newly whitewashed internally and externally, paved with wood,
and as clean as a gentleman’s stable (with stalls to fatten 90 head of cattle) ;
these, and the masterly way in which the whole is managed, both as regards
culture and profit, render this estate one of no common interest in an agricul-
tural, as well as ornamental point of view.

Ci
= imac’s Re 1]
s; Residenc

HISTORICAL NOTICES. 59

Stanton, near Germantown, four miles from Philadelphia,
is a fine old place, with many picturesque features. The
farm consists of 700 acres, almost without division fences—
admirably managed—and remarkable for its grand old
avenue of the hemlock spruce, 110 years old, leading to a
family cemetery of much sylvan beauty. There is a large
and excellent old mansion, with paved halls, built in 1781,
which is preserved in its original condition. This place
was the seat of the celebrated Logan, the friend of William
Penn, and is now owned by his descendant, Albanus Logan.

The villa residence of Alexander Brown, Esq., is situated
on the Delaware, a few miles from Philadelphia. There
is here a good deal of beauty, in the natural style, made up
chiefly by lawn and forest trees. A pleasing drive through
plantations of 25 years’ growth, is one of the most interest-
ing features—and there is much elegance and high keeping
in the grounds.

Below Philadelphia, the lover of beautiful places will
find a good deal to admire in the country seat of John R.
Latimer, Esq., near Wilmington, which enjoys the reputa-
tion of being the finest in Delaware. The place has all
the advantages of high keeping, richly stocked gardens and
conservatories, and much natural beauty, heightened by
judicious planting, arrangement, and culture.

At the south are many extensive country residences re-
markable for trees of unusual grandeur and beauty, among
which the live oak is very conspicuous ; but they are, in
general, wanting in that high keeping and care, which is
so essential to the charm of a landscape garden.

Of smaller villa residences, suburban chiefly, there are
great numbers, springing up almost by magic, in the bor-
ders of our towns and cities. Though the possessors of

60 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

these can scarcely hope to introduce anything approaching
to a landscape garden style, in laying out their limited
grounds, still they may be greatly benefited by an ac-
quaintance with the beauties and the pleasures of this
species of rural embellishment. When we are once master
of the principles, and aware of the capabilities of an art,
we are able to infuse an expression of tasteful design, or
an air of more correct elegance, even into the most humble
works, and with very limited means.

While we shall endeavor, in the following pages, to give
such a view of modern Landscape Gardening, as will enable
the improver to proceed with his fascinating operations, in
embellishing the country residence, in a practical mode,
based upon what are now generally received as the correct
principles of the art, we would desire the novice, after
making himself acquainted with all that can be acquired
from written works within his reach, to strengthen his taste
and add to his knowledge, by a practical inspection of the
best country seats among us. In an infant state of society,
in regard to the fine arts, much will be done in violation of
good taste; but here, where nature has done so much for
us, there is scarcely a large country residence in the Union,
from which useful hints in Landscape Gardening may not
be taken. And in nature, a group of trees, an accidental
pond of water, or some equally simple object, may form a
study more convincing to the mind of a true admirer of
natural beauty, than the most carefully drawn plan, or the
most elaborately written description.

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 61

SECTION IL.

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART.

Capacities of the art, The beauties of the ancient style. The modernstyle. The Beauti-
ful and the Picturesque: their distinctive characteristics. Illustrations drawn from
Nature and Painting. Nature and principles of Landscape Gardening as an Initative
art. Distinction between the Beautiful and Picturesque. The principles of Unity,
Harmony, and Variety.

«Here Nature in her unaffected dresse,
Plaited with vallies and imbost with hills,
Enchast with silver streams, and fringed with woods,
Sits lovely. ””—

CHAMBERLAYNE,

«Tl est des soins plus doux, un art plus enchanteur.
C’est peu de charmer Pil, il faut parler au cceur.
Avez-vous done connu ces rapports invisibles,
Des corps inanimés et des étres sensibles ?
Avez-vous entendu des eaux, des prés, des bois,
La muette éloquence et la secréte voix ?
Rendez-nous ces effets.” Les Jardins, Book I.

EFORE we proceed to a detailed and

more practical consideration of the subject,

let us occupy ourselves for a moment with
the consideration of the different results
which are to be sought after, or, in other
words, what kinds of beauty we may hope to
produce by Landscape Gardening. To attempt the smallest
work in any art, without knowing either the capacities of

62 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

that art, or the schools, or modes, by which it has previous-
ly been characterized, is but to be groping about in a dim
twilight, without the power of knowing, even should we be
successful in our efforts, the real excellence of our produc-
tion ; or of judging its merit, comparatively, as a work of

taste and imagination.

{Fig. 14. The Geometric style, from an old print.]

The beauties elicited by the ancient style of gardening
were those of regularity, symmetry, and the display of
labored art. These were attained in a merely mechanical
manner, and usually involved little or no theory. The
geometrical form and lines of the buildings were only ex-
tended and carried out in the garden. In the best classical
models, the art of the sculptor conferred dignity and ele-
gance on the garden, by the fine forms of marble vases and
statues ; in the more intricate and labored specimens of the

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 63

Dutch school, prevalent in England in the time of William
IV. (Fig. 14), the results evince a fertility of odd conceits,
rather than the exercise of taste or imagination. Indeed,
as, to level ground naturally uneven, or to make an avenue,
by planting rows of trees on each side of a broad walk,
requires only the simplest perception of the beauty of ma-
thematical forms, so, to lay out a garden in the geometric
style, became little more than a formal routine, and it was
only after the superior interest of a more natural manner
was enforced by men of genius, that natural beauty of
expression was recognised, and Landscape Gardening was
raised to the rank of a fine art.

The ancient style of gardening may, however, be intro-
duced with good effect in certain cases. In public squares
and gardens, where display, grandeur of effect, and a highly
artificial character are desirable, it appears to us the most
suitable; and no less so in very small gardens, in which
variety and irregularity are out of the question. Where a
taste for imitating an old and quaint style of residence
exists, the symmetrical and knotted garden would be a
proper accompaniment ; and pleached alleys, and sheared
trees, would be admired, like old armor or furniture, as
curious specimens of antique taste and custom.

The earliest professors of modern Landscape Gardening
have generally agreed upon two variations, of which the
art is capable—variations no less certainly distinct, on the
one hand, than they are capable of intermingling and com-
bining, on the other. These are the beautiful and the pic-
turesque: or, to speak more definitely, the beauty charac-
terized by simple and flowing forms, and that expressed by
striking, irregular, spirited forms.

The admirer of nature, as well as the lover of pictures

64 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and engravings, will at once call to mind examples of
scenery distinctly expressive of each of these kinds of
beauty. In nature, perhaps some gently undulating plain,
covered with emerald turf, partially or entirely encompassed
by rich, rolling outlines of forest canopy,—its wildest ex-
panse here broken occasionally, by noble groups of round-
headed trees, or there interspersed with single specimens
whose trunks support heads of foliage flowing in outline,
or drooping in masses to the very turf beneath them. In
such a scene we often behold the azure of heaven, and its
silvery clouds, as well as the deep verdure of the luxuriant
and shadowy branches, reflected in the placid bosom of a
silvan lake ; the shores of the latter swelling out, and reced-
ing, in gentle curved lines ; the banks, sometimes covered
with soft turf sprinkled with flowers, and in other portions
clothed with luxuriant masses of verdant shrubs. Here are
all the elements of what is termed natural beauty,—or a
landscape characterized by simple, easy, and flowing lines.

For an example of the opposite character, let us take a
stroll to the nearest woody glen in your neighborhood—
perhaps a romantic valley, half shut in on two or more
sides by steep rocky banks, partially concealed and over-
hung by clustering vines, and tangled thickets of deep
foliage. Against the sky outline breaks the wild and irre-
gular form of some old, half decayed tree near by, or the
horizontal and unique branches of the larch or the pine,
with their strongly marked forms. Rough and irregular
stems and trunks, rocks half covered with mosses and
flowering plants, open glades of bright verdure opposed to
dark masses of bold shadowy foliage, form prominent ob-
jects in the foreground. If water enlivens the scene, we
shall hear the murmur of the noisy brook, or the cool dash-

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 65

ing of the cascade, as it leaps over the rocky barrier. . Let
the stream turn the ancient and well-worn wheel of the old
mill in the middle ground, and we shall have an illustration
of the picturesque, not the less striking from its familiarity
to every one.

To the lover of the fine arts, the name of Claude Lor-
raine cannot fail to suggest examples of beauty in some of
its purest and most simple forms. In the best pictures of
this master, we see portrayed those graceful and flowing
forms in trees, foreground, and buildings, which delight so
much the lover of noble and chaste beauty,—compositions
emanating from a harmonious soul, and inspired by a cli-
mate and a richness of nature and art seldom surpassed.

On the other hand, where shall we find all the elements
of the picturesque more graphically combined than in the
vigorous landscapes of Salvator Rosa! In those rugged
scenes, even the lawless aspects of his favorite robbers and
banditti are not more spirited, than the bold rocks and wild
passes by which they are surrounded. And in the produc-
tions of his pencil we see the influence of a romantic and
vigorous imagination, nursed amid scenes teeming with
the grand as well as the picturesque—both of which he
embodied in the most striking manner.

In giving these illustrations of beautiful and of pictu-
resque scenes, we have not intended them to be understood
in the light of exact models for imitation in Landscape
Gardening—only as striking examples of expression in
natural scenery. Although in nature many landscapes
partake in a certain degree of both these kinds of expression,
yet it is no doubt true that the effect is more satisfactory,
where either the one or the other character predominates.

The accomplished amateur should be able to seize at once
5)

66 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

upon the characteristics of these two species of beauty in
all scenery. To assist the reader in this kind of discrimi-
nation, we shall keep these expressions constantly in view,
and we hope we shall be able fully to illustrate the differ-
ence in the expression of even single trees, in this respect.
A few strongly marked objects, either picturesque or simply
beautiful, will often confer their character upon a whole
landscape ; as the destruction of a single group of bold
rocks, covered with wood, may render a scene, once pictu-
~ resque, completely insipid.

The early writers on the modern style were content with
trees allowed to grow in their natural forms, and with an
easy assemblage of sylvan scenery in the pleasure-grounds,
which resembled the usual woodland features of nature.
The effect of this method will always be interesting, and an
agreeable effect will always be the result of following the
simplest hints derived from the free and luxuriant forms of
nature. No residence in the country can fail to be pleasing,
whose features are natural groups of forest trees, smooth
lawn, and hard gravel walks.

But this is scarcely Landscape Gardening in the true
sense of the word, although apparently so understood by
many writers. By Landscape Gardening, we understand
not only an imitation, in the grounds of a country residence,
of the agreeable forms of nature, but an expressive, harmo-
nious, and refined imitation.* In Landscape Gardening,

* «Thus, there is a beauty of nature and a beauty of art. To copy the
beauty of nature cannot be called being an artist in the highest sense of the
word, as a mechanical talent only is requisite for this. The beautiful in art
depends on ideas ; and the true artist, therefore, must possess, together with the
talent for technical execution, that genial power which revels freely in rich
forms, and is capable of producing and animating them. It is by this, that the
merit of the artist and his production is to be judged ; and these cannot be

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 67

we should aim to separate the accidental and extraneous
in nature, and to preserve only the spirit, er essence. This
subtle essence lies, we believe, in the expression more or
Jess pervading every attractive portion of nature. And it
is by eliciting, preserving, or heightening this expression,
that we may give our landscape gardens a higher charm,
than even the polish of art can bestow.

Now, the two most forcible and complete expressions to
be found in that kind of natural scenery which may be
reproduced in Landscape Gardening, are the Beauriru.
and the Picruresave. As we look upon these as quite
distinct, and as success in practical embellishment must
depend on our feeling and understanding these expressions
beforehand, it is necessary that we should attach some
definite meaning to terms which we shall be continually
obliged toemploy. This is, indeed, the more requisite, from
the vague and conflicting opinions of most preceding writers
on this branch of the subject ; some, like Repton, insisting
that they are identical; and others, like Price, that they
are widely different.

Gilpin defines Picturesque objects to be “those which
please from some quality capable of being illustrated in
painting.”

Nothing can well be more vague than such a definition.
We have already described the difference between the
beautiful landscapes of Claude and the picturesque scenes
painted by Salvator. No one can deny their being essen-

properly estimated among those barren copyists which we find so many of our
flower, landscape, and portrait painters to be. But the artist stands much
higher in the scale, who, though a copyist of visible nature, is capable of seiz-
ing it with poetic feeling, and representing it in its more dignified sense ; such,
for example, as Raphael, Poussin, Claude, &c.”—WEINBREUNER.

68 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

tially distinct in character; and no one, we imagine, will
deny that they both please from “some quality capable of
being illustrated in painting.” The beautiful female heads
of Carlo Dolce are widely different from those of the pictu-
resque peasant girls of Gerard Douw, yet both are favorite
subjects with artists. A symmetrical American elm, with
its wide head drooping with garlands of graceful foliage, is
very different in expression from the wild and twisted larch
or pine tree, which we find on the steep sides of a moun-
tain; yet both are favorite subjects with the painter. It is
clear, indeed, that there is a widely different idea hidden
under these two distinct types, in material forms.

Beauty, in all natural objects, as we conceive, arises
from their expression of those attributes of the Creator—
infinity, unity, symmetry, proportion, ete——which he has
stamped more or less visibly on all his works; and a beau-
tiful living form is one in which the individual is a harmo-
nious and well balanced development ofa fine type. Thus,
taking the most perfect specimens of beauty in the human
figure, we see in them symmetry, proportion, unity,
and grace—the presence of everything that could add
to the idea of perfected existence. In a beautiful tree,
such as a fine American elm, we see also the most complete
and perfect balance of all its parts, resulting from its
growth under the most favorable influences. It realizes,
then, perfectly, the finest form of a fine type or species of
tree.

But all nature is not equally Beautiful. Both in living
things and in inorganized matter, we see on all sides evi-
dences of nature struggling with opposing forces. Moun-
tains are upheaved by convulsions, valleys are broken into

fearful chasms. Certain forms of animal and vegetable life,

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 69

instead of manifesting themselves in those more complete
and perfect forms of existence where the matter and spirit
are almost in perfect harmony, appear to struggle for the
full expression of their character with the material form,
and to express it only with difficulty at last. What is
achieved with harmony, grace, dignity, almost with appa-
rent repose, by existences whose type is the Beautiful, is
done only with violence and disturbed action by the former.
This kind of manifestation in nature we call the Pictures-
que.

More concisely, the Beautiful is nature or art obeying
the universal laws of perfect existence (i. e. Beauty),
easily, freely. harmoniously,-and without the display of
power. The Picturesque is nature or art obeying the same
laws rudely, violently, irregularly, and often displaying
power only.

Hence we find all Beautiful forms characterized by curved
and flowing lines—lines expressive of infinity,* of grace,
and willing obedience: and all Picturesque forms character-
ized by irregular and broken lines—lines expressive of vio-
lence, abrupt action, and partial disobedience, a strug-
gling of the idea with the substance or the condition of its
being. The Beautiful is an idea of beauty calmly and har-
moniously expressed ; the Picturesque an idea of beauty or
power strongly and irregularly expressed. As an example
of the Beautifulin other arts we refer to the Apollo of the
Vatican ; as an example of the Picturesque, to the Laocoon
or the Dying Gladiator. In nature we would place before

* Hogarth called the curve the line of beauty, and all artists have felt instinct-
ively its power, but Mr. Ruskin (in Modern Painters) was, we believe, the
first to suggest the cause of that power—that i expresses in its varying ten-
dencies, the infinite.

70 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the reader a finely formed elm or chestnut, whose well
balanced head is supported on a trunk full of symmetry and
dignity, and whose branches almost sweep the turf in their
rich luxuriance ; as a picturesque contrast, some pine or
larch, whose gnarled roots grasp the rocky crag on which it
grows, and whose wild and irregular branches tell of the
storm and tempest that it has so often struggled against.*

In pictures, too, one often hears the Beautiful confounded
with the Picturesque. Yet they are quite distinct; though
in many subjects they may be found harmoniously com-
bined. Some of Raphael’s angels may be taken as perfect
illustrations of the Beautiful. In their serene and heavenly
countenances we see only that calm and pure existence of
which perfect beauty is the outward type ; on the other hand,
Murillo’s beggar boys are only picturesque. What we ad-
mire in them (beyond admirable execution) is not their rags
or their mean apparel, but a certain irregular struggling
of a better feeling within, against this outward poverty of
nature and condition.

Architecture borrows, partly perhaps by association, the
same expression. We find the Beautiful in the most sym-
metrical edifices, built in the finest proportions, and of the
purest materials. It is, on the other hand, in some irregu-
lar castle formed for defence, some rude mill nearly as wild as
the glen where it is placed, some thatched cottage, weather
stained and moss covered, that we find the Picturesque.
The Temple of Jupiter Olympus in all its perfect proportions

* This also explains why trees, though they retain for the most part their
characteristic forms, vary somewhat in expression according to their situation.
Thus the larch, though always picturesque, is far more so in mountain ridges
where it is exposed to every blast, than in sheltered lawns where it only finds
soft airs and sunshine.

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 71

was prized by the Greeks as a model of beauty ; we, who
see only a few columns and broken architraves standing,
with all their exquisite mouldings obliterated by the vio-
lence of time and the elements, find them Picturesque.

To return to a more practical view of the subject,
we may remark, that though we consider the Beautiful and
the Picturesque quite distinct, yet it by no means follows
that they may not be combined in the same landscape.
This is often seen in nature ; and indeed there are few
landscapes of large extent where they are not thus harmo-
niously combined.

But it must be remembered, that while Landscape Gar-
dening is an imitation of nature, yet it is rarely attempted
on so large a scale as to be capable of the same extended
harmony and variety of expression ; and also, that in Land-
scape Gardening as in the other fine arts, we shall be more
successful by directing our efforts towards the production
of a leading character or expression, than by endeavor-
ing to join and harmonize several.

Our own views on this subject are simply these. When
a place is small, and only permits a single phase of natural
expression, always endeavor to heighten or to make that
single expression predominate ; it should clearly either aim
only at the Beautiful or the Picturesque.

When, on the contrary, an estate of large size comes
within the scope of the Landscape Gardener, he is at liberty
to give to each separate scene its most fitting character ;
he will thus, if he is a skilful artist, be able to create great
variety both of beautiful and picturesque expression, and
he will also be able to give a higher proof of his power, viz.
by uniting all those scenes into one whole, by bringing
them all into harmony. An artist who can do this has
reached the ultimatum of his art.

72 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Again and again has it been said, that Landscape Gar-
dening and Painting are allied. In no one point does it ap-
pear to us that they are so, more than in this—that in pro-
portion to the limited nature of the subject should simpli-
city and unity of expression be remembered. In some of
the finest smaller compositions of Raphael, or some of the
Landscapes of Claude, so fully is this borne in mind, that
every object, however small, seems to be instinct with the
same expression ; while in many of the great historical
pictures, unity and harmony are wrought out of the most
complex variety of expression.

We must not be supposed to find in nature only the
Beautiful and the Picturesque. Grandeur and Sublimity
are also expressions strongly marked in many of the noblest
portions of natural landscape. But, except in very rare
instances, they are wholly beyond the powers of the land-
scape gardener, at least in the comparatively limited scale
of his operations in this country. All that he has to do, is
to respect them where they exist in natural landscape which
forms part of his work of art, and so treat the latter, as
to make it accord with, or at least not violate, the higher
and predominant expression of the whole.

There are, however, certain subordinate expressions
which may be considered as qualities of the Beautiful, and
which may originally so prevail in natural landscape, or be
so elicited or created by art, as to give a distinct character
to a small country residence, or portions of a large one.
These are simplicity, dignity, grace, elegance, gaiety,
chasteness, &c. It is not necessary that we should go
into a labored explanation of these expressions. They are
more or less familiar to all. A few fine trees, scattered

and grouped over any surface of smooth lawn, will give a

Picturesque in Landscape Gardening.

273

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 73

character of simple beauty; lofty trees of great age,
hills covered with rich wood, an elevation commanding a
wide country, stamp a site with dignity ; trees of full and
graceful habit or gently curving forms in the lawn, walks,
and all other objects, will convey the idea of grace ; as
finely formed and somewhat tall trees of rare species, or a
great abundance of bright climbers and gay flowering shrubs
and plants, will confer characters of elegance and gaiety.

He who would create in his pleasure grounds these more
delicate shades of expression, must become a profound stu-
dent both of nature and art; he must be able, by his
own original powers, to seize the subtle essence, the half
disclosed idea involved in the finest parts of nature, and to
reproduce and develope it in his Landscape Garden.

Leaving such, however, to a broader range of study than
a volume like this would afford, we may offer what, per-
haps, will not be unacceptable to the novice—a more de-
tailed sketch of the distinctive features of the Beautiful and
the Picturesque, as these expressions should be embodied
in Landscape Gardening.

Tue Beautirut in Landscape Gardening (Fig. 15) is
produced by outlines whose curves are flowing and gradual,
surfaces of softness, and growth of richness and luxuriance.
In the shape of the ground, it is evinced by easy undulations
melting gradually into each other. In the form of trees, by
smooth stems, full, round, or symmetrical heads of foliage,
and luxuriant branches often drooping to the ground,—which
is chiefly attained by planting and grouping, to allow free
development of form ; and by selecting trees of suitable cha-
racter, as the elm, the ash, and the like. In walks and
- roads, by easy flowing curves, following natural shapes of

the surface, with no sharp angies or abrupt turns. In water,

74 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

by the smooth lake with curved margin, embellished with
flowing outlines of trees, and full masses of flowering
shrubs—or in the easy winding curves of a brook. The
keeping of such a scene should be of the most polished
kind,—grass mown into a softness like velvet, gravel walks
scrupulously firm, dry, and clean; and the most perfect
order and neatness should reign throughout. Among the
trees and shrubs should be conspicuous the finest foreign
sorts, distinguished by beauty of form, foliage, and blossom ;
and rich groups of shrubs and flowering plants shouid be
arranged in the more dressed portions near the house.
And finally, considering the house itself as a feature in the
scene, it should properly belong to one of the classical
modes; and the Italian, Tuscan, or Venetian forms are
preferable, because these have both a polished and a
domestic air, and readily admit of the graceful accom-
paniments of vases, urns, and other harmonious
accessories. Or, if we are to have a plainer dwelling,
it should be simple and symmetrical in its character, and
its veranda festooned with masses of the finest climbers.
Tue Picruresave in Landscape Gardening (Fig. 16)
aims at the production of outlines of a certain spirited
irregularity, surfaces comparatively abrupt and broken,
and growth of a somewhat wild and bold character. The
shape .of the ground sought after, has its occasional
smoothness varied by sudden variations, and in parts runs
into dingles, rocky groups, and broken banks. The trees
should in many places be old and irregular, with rough
stems and bark; and pines, larches, and other trees of
striking, irregular growth, must appear in numbers sufficient
to give character to the woody outlines. As, to produce
the Beautiful, the trees are planted singly in open groups

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 75

to allow full expansion, so for the Picturesque, the grouping
takes every variety of form; almost every object should
group with another; trees and shrubs are often planted
closely together; and intricacy and variety—thickets—
glades—and underwood—as in wild nature, are indispensa-
ble. Walks and roads are more abrupt in their windings,
turning off frequently at sudden angles where the form of
the ground or some inviting object directs. In water, all
the wildness of romantic spots in nature is to be imitated
or preserved ; and the lake or stream with bold shore and
rocky, wood-fringed margin, or the cascade in the secluded
dell, are the characteristic forms. The keeping of such a
landscape will of course be less careful than in the
graceful school. Firm gravel walks near the house, and
a general air of neatness in that quarter, are indispensable
to the fitness of the scene in all modes, and indeed properly
evince the recognition of art in all Landscape Gardening.
But the lawn may be less frequently mown, the edges of
the walks less carefully trimmed, where the Picturesque
prevails; while in portions more removed from the house,
the walks may sometimes sink into a mere footpath
without gravel, and the lawn change into the forest glade
or meadow. The architecture which belongs to the
picturesque landscape, is the Gothic mansion, the old
English or the Swiss cottage, or some other striking
forms, with bold projections, deep shadows, and irregular
outlines. Rustic baskets, and similar ornaments, may
abound near the house, and in the more frequented parts
of the place.

The recognition of art, as Loudon justly observes, is a
first principle in Landscape Gardening, as in all other arts ;
and those of its professors have erred, who supposed that

76 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the object of this art is merely to produce a fac-simile of
nature, that could not be distinguished from a wild scene.
But we contend that this principle may be fully attained
with either expression—the picturesque cottage being as
well a work of art as the classic villa; its baskets, and
seats of rustic work, indicating the hand of man as well
as the marble vase and balustrade ; and a walk, sometimes
narrow and crooked, is as certainly recognised as man’s
work, as one always regular and flowing. Foreign trees
of picturesque growth are as readily obtained as those of
beautiful forms. The recognition of art is, therefore,
always apparent in both modes. The evidences are
indeed stronger and more multiplied in the careful polish
of the Beautiful landscape,* and hence many prefer this
species of landscape, not, as it deserves to be preferred, °
because it displays the most beautiful and perfect ideas in
its outlines, the forms of its trees, and all that enters into
its composition, but chiefly because it also is marked by
that careful polish, and that completeness, which imply
the expenditure of money, which they so well know how
to value.

If we declare that the Beautiful is the more perfect
expression in landscape, we shall be called upon to explain
why the Picturesque is so much more attractive to many
minds. This, we conceive, is owing partly to the imper-

* The beau ideal in Landscape Gardening, as a fine art, appears to us to be
embraced in the creation of scenery full of expression, as the beautiful or pic-
turesque, the materials of which are, to a certain extent, different from those in
wild nature, being composed of the floral and arboricultural riches of all climates,
as far as possible ; uniting in the same scene, a richness and a variety never to
be found in any one portion of nature ;—a scene characterized as a work of art,
by the variety of the materials, as foreign trees, plants, &c., and by the polish

and keeping of the grounds in the natural style, as distinctly as by the uniform
and symmetrical arrangement in the ancient style.

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 71%

fection of our natures by which most of us sympathize
more with that in which the struggle between spirit and
matter is most apparent, than with that in which the
union is harmonious and complete; and partly because
from the comparative rarity of highly picturesque land-
scape, it affects us more forcibly when brought into
contrast with our daily life. Artists, we imagine, find
somewhat of the same pleasure in studying wild land-
scape, where the very rocks and trees seem to struggle
with the elements for foothold, that they do in contem-
plating the phases of the passions and instincts of
human and animal life. The manifestation of power is
to many minds far more captivating than that of beauty.

All who enjoy the charms of Landscape Gardening,
may perhaps be divided into three classes : those who have
arrived only at certain primitive ideas of beauty which
are found in regular forms and straight lines; those who
in the Beautiful seek for the highest and most perfect
development of the idea in the material form ;
and those who in the Picturesque enjoy most a certain
wild and incomplete harmony between the idea and the
forms in which it is expressed.

As the two latter classes embrace the whole range
of modern Landscape Gardening, we shall keep distinctly
in view their two governing principles—the Beautiful and
the Picturesque, in treating of the practice of the art.

There are always circumstances which must exert a
controlling influence over amateurs, in this country, in
choosing between the two. These are, fixed locality, ex-
pense, individual preference in the style of building, and
many others which readily occur to all. The great variety
of attractive sites in the older parts of the country, afford an

78 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

abundance of opportunity for either taste. Within the last
five years, we think the Picturesque is beginning to be pre-
ferred. It has, when a suitable locality offers, great advan-
tages for us. The raw materials of wood, water, and sur-
face, by the margin of many of our rivers and brooks, are
at once appropriated with so much effect, and so little art,
in the picturesque mode; the annual tax on the purse too
is so comparatively little, and the charm so great!

While, on one hand, the residences of a country of level
plains usually allow only the beauty of simple and grace-
ful forms; the larger demesne, with its swelling hills and
noble masses of wood (may we not, prospectively, say the
rolling prairie too?), should always, in the hands of the
man of wealth, be made to display all the breadth, va-
riety, and harmony of both the Beautiful and the Pictu-
resque.

There is no surface of ground, however bare, which has
not, naturally, more or less tendency to one or the other of
these expressions. And the improver who detects the true
character, and plants, builds, and embellishes, as he should,
constantly aiming to elicit and strengthen it—will soon
arrive at a far higher and more satisfactory result, than one
who, in the common manner, works atrandom. The latter
may succeed in producing pleasing grounds—he will un-
doubtedly add to the general beauty and tasteful appearance
of the country, and we gladly accord him our thanks. But
the improver who unites with pleasing forms an expres-
sion of sentiment, will affect not only the common eye, but
much more powerfully, the imagination, and the refined
and delicate taste.

But there are many persons with small cottage places,
of little decided character, who have neither room, time,

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 79

nor income, to attempt the improvement of their grounds
fully, after either of those two schools. How shall they
render their places tasteful and agreeable, in the easiest
manner? We answer, by attempting only the simple and
the natural; and the unfailing way to secure this, is by
employing as leading features only trees and grass. A
soft verdant lawn, a few forest or ornamental trees
well grouped, walks, and a few flowers, give universal
pleasure ; they contain in themselves, in fact, the basis of
all our agreeable sensations in a landscape garden (na-
tural beauty, and the recognition of art); and they are
the most enduring sources of enjoyment in any place.
There are no country seats in the United States so unsa-
tisfactory and tasteless, as those in which, without any
definite aim, everything is attempted; and a mixed jumble
of discordant forms, materials, ornaments, and decorations,
is assembled—a part in one style and a bit in another,
without the least feeling of unity or congruity. These
rural bedlams, full of all kinds of absurdities, without a
leading character or expression of any sort, cost their
owners a vast deal of trouble and money, without giving a
tasteful mind a shadow of the beauty which it feels at the
first glimpse of a neat cottage residence, with its simple,
sylvan character of well kept lawn and trees. If the latter
does not rank high in the scale of Landscape Gardening
as an art, it embodies much of its essence as a source of
enjoyment—the production of the Beautiful in country
residences.

Besides the beauties of form and expression in the differ-
ent modes of laying out grounds, there are certain univer-
sal and inherent beauties common to all styles, and, indeed,
to every composition in the fine arts. Of these, we shall

80 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

especially point out those growing out of the principles of
UNITY, HARMONY, and VARIETY.

Uniry, or the production of a whole, is a leading
principle of the highest importance, in every art of taste or
design, without which no satisfactory result can be
realized. This arises from the fact, that the mind can only
attend, with pleasure and satisfaction, to one object, or one
composite sensation, at the same time. If two distinct
objects, or classes of objects, present themselves at once to
us, we can only attend satisfactorily to one, by withdraw-
ing our attention for the time from the other. Hence the
necessity of a reference to this leading principle of unity.

To illustrate the subject, let us suppose a building,
partially built of wood, with square windows, and the
remainder of brick or stone, with long and narrow
windows. However well such a building may be con-
structed, or however nicely the different proportions of the
edifice may be adjusted, it is evident it can never forma
satisfactory whole. The mind can only account for such
an absurdity, by supposing it to have been built by two
individuals, or at two different times, as there is nothing
indicating unity of mind in its composition.

In Landscape Gardening, violations of the principle of
unity are often to be met with, and they are always indi-
cative of the absence of correct taste in art. Looking upon
a landscape from the windows of a villa residence, we
sometimes see a considerable portion of the view embraced
by the eye, laid out in natural groups of trees and shrubs,
and upon one side, or perhaps in the middle of the same
scene, a formal avenue leading directly up to the house.
Such a view can never appear a satisfactory whole,

because we experience a confusion of sensations in con-

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 81

templating it. There is an evident incongruity in bringing
two modes of arranging plantations, so totally different,
under the eye at one moment, which distracts, rather than
pleases the mind. In this example, the avenue, taken by
itself, may be a beautiful object, and the groups and con-
nected masses may, in themselves, be elegant; yet if the
two portions are seen together, they will not form a whole,
because they cannot make a composite idea. For the
same reason, there 1s something unpleasing in the introduc-
tion of fruit trees among elegant ornamental trees on a
lawn, or even in assembling together, in the same beds,
flowering plants and culinary vegetables—one class of
vegetation suggesting the useful and homely alone to the
mind, and the other, avowedly, only the ornamental.

In the arrangement of a large extent of surface, where a
great many objects are necessarily presented to the eye at
once, the principle of unity will suggest that there should
be some grand or leading features to which the others
should be merely subordinate. Thus, in grouping trees,
there should be some large and striking masses to which
the others appear to belong, however distant, instead of
scattered groups, all of the same size. Even in arranging
walks, a whole will more readily be recognised, if there are
one or two of large size, with which the others appear
connected as branches, than if all are equal in breadth,
and present the same appearance to the eye in passing.

In all works of art which command universal admiration
we discover an unity of conception and composition, an
unity of taste and execution. To assemble in a single
composition forms which are discordant, and portions
dissimilar in plan, can only afford pleasure for a short time

to tasteless minds, or those fond of trifling and puerile
6

82 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

conceits. The production of an accordant whole is, on
the contrary, capable of affording the most permanent
enjoyment to educated minds, everywhere, and at all periods
of time.

After unity, the principle of Varrery is worthy of con-
sideration, as a fertile source of beauty in Landscape Gar-
dening. Variety must be considered as belonging more to
the details than to the production of a whole, and it may
be attained by disposing trees and shrubs in numerous dif-
ferent ways; and by the introduction of a great number of
different species of vegetation, or kinds of walks, ornamental
objects, buildings, and seats. By producing intricacy, it
creates in scenery a thousand points of interest, and elicits
new beauties, through different arrangements and combi-
nations of forms and colors, light and shades. In pleasure-
grounds, while the whole should exhibit a general plan, the
different scenes presented to the eye, one after the other,
should possess sufficient variety in the detail to keep alive
the interest of the spectator, and awaken further curiosity.

Harmony may be considered the principle presiding over
variety, and preventing it from becoming discordant. It,
indeed, always supposes contrasts, but neither so strong nor
so frequent as to produce discord; and variety, but not so
great as to destroy a leading expression: In plantations,
we seek it in a combination of qualities, opposite in some
respects, as in the color of the foliage, and similar in others
more important, as the form. In embellishments, by a great
variety of objects of interest, as sculptured vases, sun dials,
or rustic seats, baskets, and arbors, of different forms, but all
in accordance, or keeping with the spirit of the scene.

To illustrate the three principles, with reference to Land-
scape Gardening, we may remark, that, if unity only were

BEAUTIES AND PRINCIPLES OF THE ART. 83

consulted, a scene might be planted with but one kind of
tree, the effect of which would be sameness; on the other
hand, variety might be carried so far as to have every tree
of a different kind, which would produce a confused effect.
Harmony, however, introduces contrast and variety, but
keeps them subordinate to unity, and to the leading expres-
sion ; and is, thus, the highest principle of the three.

In this brief abstract of the nature of imitation in Land-
scape Gardening and the kinds of beauty which it is possible
to produce by means of the art, we have endeavored to
elucidate its leading principles, clearly, to the reader.
These grand principles we shall here succinctly recapitu-
late, premising that a familiarity with them is of the very
first importance in the successful practice of this elegant
art, Viz. : «

Tue Imrration or tHe Beauty or Expression, derived
from a refined perception of the sentiment of nature: Tus
Recognition or Art, founded on the immutability of the
true, as well as the beautiful: Anp tue Propucrion or
Unity, Harmony, anp Variety, in order to render com-
plete and continuous, our enjoyment of any artistical
work.

Neither the professional Landscape Gardener, nor the
amateur, can hope for much success in realizing the nobler
effects of the art, unless he first make himself master of the
natural character or prevailing expression of the place to
be improved. In this nice perception, at a glance, of the
natural expression, as well as the capabilities of a residence,
lies the secret of the superior results produced even by the
improver, who, to use the words of Horace Walpole, “ is
proud of no other art than that of softening nature’s harsh-

ness, and copying her graceful touch.” When we discover

84 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the picturesque indicated in the grounds of the residence to
be treated, let us take advantage of it ; and while all harsh-
ness incompatible with scenery near the house is removed,
the original expression may in most cases be heightened, in
all rendered more elegant and appropriate, without lower-
ing it in force or spirit. In like manner good taste will
direct us to embellish scenery expressive of the Beautiful,
by the addition of forms, whether in trees, buildings, or
other objects, harmonious in character, as well as in color

and outline.

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 85

SECTION II.

ON WOOD.

The beauty of Trees in Rural Embellishments. Pleasure resulting from their cultivation.
Plantations in the Ancient Style ; their formality. In the Modern Style ; grouping trees.
Arrangement and grouping in the Graceful school; in the Picturesque school. Illustra-
tions in planting villa, ferme ornée, and cottage grounds. General classification of trees
as to forms, with leading characteristics of each class.

“ He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades ;
Now breaks, or now directs the intending lines ;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.”
Pore.

ai M O N G all the materials at our disposal
8 for the embellishment of country resi-
Se ce e dences, none are at once so highly orna-
mental, so indispensable, and so easily managed, as trees, or
wood. We introduce them in every part of the landscape,
—in the foreground as well as in the distance, on the tops
of the hills and in the depths of the valleys. They are, in-
deed, like the drapery which covers a somewhat ungainly
figure, and while it conceals its defects, communicates to it
new interest and expression.

A tree, undoubtedly, is one of the most beautiful objects
in nature. Airy and delicate in its youth, luxuriant and
majestic in its prime, venerable and picturesque in its old

86 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

age, it constitutes in its various forms, sizes, and develop-
ments, the greatest charm and beauty of the earth in all
countries. The most varied outline of surface, the finest
combination of picturesque materials, the stateliest country
house would be comparatively tame and spiritless, without
the inimitable accompaniment of foliage. Let those who
have passed their whole lives in a richly wooded country,
—whose daily visions are deep leafy glens, forest clad hills,
and plains luxuriantly shaded,—transport themselves for a
moment to the desert, where but a few stunted bushes raise
their heads above the earth, or those wild steppes where
the eye wanders in vain for some “leafy garniture,’’—where
the sun strikes down with parching heat, or the wind
sweeps over with unbroken fury, and they may, perhaps,
estimate, by contrast, their beauty and value.

We are not now to enumerate the great usefulness of
trees,—their value in the construction of our habitations,
our navies, the various implements of labor,—in short, the
thousand associations which they suggest as ministering to
our daily wants; but let us imagine the loveliest scene, the
wildest landscape, or the most enchanting valley, despoiled
of trees, and we shall find nature shorn of her fair propor-
tions, and the character and expression of these favorite

spots almost entirely destroyed.

Wood, in its many shapes, is then one of the greatest
sources of interest and character in Landscapes. Variety,
which we need scarcely allude to as a fertile source of
beauty, is created in a wonderful degree by a natural
arrangement of trees. To a pile of buildings, or even of
ruins, to a group of rocks or animals, they communicate
new life and spirit by their irregular outlines, which, by
partially concealing some portions, and throwing others

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 87

into stronger light, contribute greatly to produce intricacy
and variety, and confer an expression, which, without these
latter qualities, might in a great measure be wanting. By
shutting out some parts, and inclosing others, they divide
the extent embraced by the eye into a hundred different
landscapes, instead of one tame scene bounded by the
horizon.

The different seasons of the year, too, are inseparably
connected in our minds with the effects produced by them
on woodland scenery. Spring is joyous and enlivening to
us, as nature then puts on her fresh livery of green, and the
trees bud and blossom with a renewed beauty, that speaks
with a mute and gentle eloquence to the heart. In sum-
mer they offer us a grateful shelter under their umbrageous
arms and leafy branches, and whisper unwritten music to
the passing breeze. In autumn we feel a melancholy

thoughtfulness as

«We stand among the fallen leaves,”

and gaze upon their dying glories. And in winter we see
in them the silent rest of nature, and behold in their leaf-
less spray, and seemingly dead limbs, an annual type of
that deeper mystery—the deathless sleep of all being.

By the judicious employment of trees in the embellishment
of a country residence, we may effect the greatest alterations
and improvements within the scope of Landscape Garden-
ing. Buildings which are tame, insipid, or even mean in
appearance, may be made interesting, and often picturesque,
by a proper disposition of trees. Eddifices, or parts of them
that are unsightly, or which it is desirable partly or wholly
to conceal, can readily be hidden or improved by wood ;
and walks and roads, which otherwise would be but simple

88 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ways of approach from one point to another, are, by an
elegant arrangement of trees on their margins, or adjacent
to them, made the most interesting and pleasing portions of
the residence.

In Geometric gardening, trees disposed in formal lines,
exhibit as strongly art or design in the contriver, as regu-
lar architectural edifices; while, in a more elevated and
enlightened taste, we are able to dispose them in our plea-
sure-grounds and parks, around our houses, in all the vari-
ety of groups, masses, thicket, and single trees, in such a
manner as to rival the most beautiful scenery of general
nature ; producing a portion of landscape which unites with
all the comforts and conveniences of rural habitation, the
superior charm of refined arrangement, and natural beauty
of expression.

If it were necessary to present any other inducement
to the country gentleman to form plantations of trees,
than the great beauty and value which they add to his
estate, we might find it in the pleasure which all derive
from their cultivation. Unlike the pleasure arising from
the gratification of our taste in architecture, or any other
of the arts whose productions are offered to us perfect
and complete, the satisfaction arising from planting and
rearing trees is never weakened. “We look,” says a
writer, “upon our trees as our offspring; and nothing
of inanimate nature can be more gratifying than to see
them grow and prosper under our care and attention,—
nothing more interesting than to examine their progress,
and mark their several peculiarities. In their progress
from plants to trees, they every year unfold new and
characteristic marks of their ultimate beauty, which not

only compensate for past cares and troubles, but like the

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 89

returns of gratitude, raise a most delightful train of
sensations in the mind; so innocent and rational, that
they may justly rank with the most exquisite of human
enjoyments.”

“ Happy is he, who in a country life
Shuns more perplexing toil and jarring strife;
Who lives upon the natal soil he loves,
And sits beneath his old ancestral groves.”

To this, let us add the complacent feelings with which a
man in old age may look around him and behold these
leafy monarchs, planted by his boyish hands and nurtured
by him in his youthful years, which have grown aged and
venerable along with him ;

«A wood coeyal with himself he sees,
And loves his own contemporary trees.”

PLanrations In THE Ancient Sryue. In the arrange-
ment and culture of trees and plants in the ancient style
of Landscape Gardening, we discover the evidences of
the formal taste,—abounding with every possible variety
of quaint conceits, and rife with whimsical expedients,
so much in fashion during the days of Henry and Eliza-
beth, and until the eighteenth century in England, and
which is still the reigning mode in Holland, and parts of
France. In these gardens, nature was tamed and subdued,
or as some critics will have it, tortured into every shape
which the ingenuity of the gardener could suggest ; and
such kinds of vegetation as bore the shears most patiently,
and when carefully trimmed, assumed gradually the
appearance of verdant statues, pyramids, crowing cocks,
and rampant lions, were the especial favorites of the

90 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

gardeners of the old school.* The stately etiquette and
courtly precision of the manners of our English ancestors,
extended into their gardens, and were reflected back by the
very trees which lined their avenues, and the shrubs which
surrounded their houses. ‘“ Nonsuch, Theobalds, Green-
wich, Hampton Court, Hatfield, Moor-Park, Chatsworth,
Beaconfield, Cashiobury, Ham, and many another,” says
William Howitt, “stood in all that stately formality which
Henry and Elizabeth admired; and in which our Surreys,
Leicesters, Essexes, the splendid nobles of the Tudor
dynasty, the gay ladies and gallants of Charles I.’s court,
had walked and talked,—fluttering in glittering processions,
or flirting in green alleys and bowers of topiary work, and
amid figures, in lead or stone, fountains, cascades,—
copper-trees dropping sudden showers on the astonished
passers under, stately terraces with gilded balustrades, and
curious quincunxes, obelisks, and pyramids ;—fitting objects
of admiration of those who walked in high heeled shoes,
ruffs, and fardingales, with fan in hand, or in trunk hose
and laced doublet.”

Symmetrical uniformity governed with despotic power
even the trees and foliage, in the ancient style. In the
more simple country residences, the plantations were
always arranged in some regular lines or geometrical
figures. Long parallel rows of trees were planted for
groves and avenues along the principal roads and walks.
The greatest care was taken to avoid any appearance of
irregularity. A tree upon one side of the house was

opposed by another vis @ vis, and a row of trees at the

* The unique ideal of the “Garden of Eden,” by one of the old Dutch
painters, with sheared hedges, formal alleys, and geometric plots of flowers, for
the entertainment of our first parents, is doubtless familiar to our readers.

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS, 91

right of the mansion had its always accompanying row
on the left: or, as Pope in his Satire has more rhythmically
expressed it—

“ Grove nods at grove, each alley has its brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.”

In the interior of the park, the plantations were generally
disposed either in straight avenues crossing each other, or
clumped in the form of circles, stars, squares, etc. ; and
long vistas were obtained through the avenues divaricating
from the house in various directions, over level surfaces.
One of the favorite fancies of the geometric gardener
was the Labyrinth (fig. 17), of which a few celebrated
examples are still in existence in England, and which
consisted of a multitude of trees thickly planted in
impervious hedges, covering sometimes several acres of
ground. These labyrinths were the source of much
amusement to the family and guests, the trial of skill being
to find the centre, and from that point to return again
without assistance ; and we are told by a historian of the
garden of that period, that “the stranger having once

entered, was sorely puzzled to get out.”

[Fig. 17. A Labyrinth.]

92 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Since the days when these gardens were in their glory
the taste in Landscape Gardening has undergone a great
change. The beautiful and the picturesque are the new
elements of interest, which, entering into the composition
of our gardens and home landscapes, have to refined minds
increased a hundred fold the enjoyment derived from this
species of rural scenery. Still, there is much to admire
in the ancient style. Its long and majestic avenues, the
wide-spreading branches interlacing over our heads, and
forming long, shadowy aisles, are, themselves alone, among
the noblest and most imposing sylvan objects. Even the
formal and curiously knotted gardens are interesting, from
the pleasing associations which they suggest to the mind,
as having been the favorite haunts of Shakspeare, Bacon,
Spenser, and Milton. They are so inseparably connected,
too, in our imaginations, with the quaint architecture of
that era, that wherever that style of building is adopted
(and we observe several examples already among us) this
style of gardening may be considered as highly appropriate,
and in excellent keeping with such a country house.

It has been remarked, that the geometric style would
always be preferred in a new country, or in any country
where the amount of land under cultivation is much less
than that covered with natural woods and forests; as the
inhabitants being surrounded by scenery abounding with
natural beauty, would always incline to lay out their gar-
dens and pleasure-grounds in regular forms, because the
distinct exhibition of art would give more pleasure by con-
trast, than the elegant imitation of beautiful nature. That
this is true as regards the mass of uncultivated minds, we
do not deny. But at the same time we affirm that it

evinces a meagre taste, and a lower state of the art, or a

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 93

lower perception of beauty in the individual who employs
the geometrical style in such cases. A person, whose
place is surrounded by inimitably grand or sublime scenery,
would undoubtedly fail to excite our admiration, by at-
tempting a fac-simile imitation of such scenery on the small
scale of a park or garden; but he is not, therefore, obliged
to resort to right-lined plantations and regular grass plots,
to produce something which shall be at once sufficiently
different to attract notice, and so beautiful as to command
admiration. All that it would be requisite for him to do
in such a case, would be to employ rare and foreign orna-
mental trees; as for example, the horse-chestnut and the
linden, in situations where the maple and the sycamore are
the principal trees,—elegant flowering shrubs and beautiful
creepers, instead of sumacs and hazels,—and to have his
place kept in high and polished order, instead of the tan-
gled wildness of general nature.

On the contrary, were a person to desire a residence
newly laid out and planted, in a district where all around
is in a high state of polished cultivation, as in the suburbs
of a city, a species of pleasure would result from the imita-
tion of scenery of a more spirited, natural character,
as the picturesque, in his grounds. His plantations are
made in irregular groups, composed chiefly of picturesque
trees, as the larch, &c.—his walks would lead through
varied scenes, sometimes bordered with groups of rocks
overrun with flowering creepers and vines ; sometimes
with thickets or little copses of shrubs and flowering
plants; sometimes through wild and comparatively ne-
glected portions ; the whole interspersed with open glades
of turf.

In the majority of instances in the United States, the

94 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

modern style of Landscape Gardening, wherever it is ap-
preciated, will, in practice, consist in arranging a demesne
of from five to some hundred acres,—or rather that portion
of it, say one half, one third, etc., devoted to lawn and
pleasure-ground, pasture, etc.—so as to exhibit groups of
forest and ornamental trees and shrubs, surrounding the
dwelling of the proprietor, and extending for a greater or
less distance, especially towards the place of entrance from
the public highway. Near the house, good taste will dic-
tate the assemblage of groups and masses of the rarer or
more beautiful trees and shrubs; commoner native forest
trees occupying the more distant portions of the grounds.*

Piantrations in THE Mopern Sryzze. In the Modern
Style of Landscape Gardening, it is our aim, in plantations,
to produce not only what is called natural beauty, but
even higher and more striking beauty of expression, and of

individual forms, than we see in nature; to create variety

* Although we love planting, and avow that there are few greater pleasures
than to see a darling tree, of one’s own placing, every year stretching wider its
feathery head of foliage, and covering with a darker shadow the soft turf beneath
it, still, we will not let the ardent and inexperienced hunter after a location for
a country residence, pass without a word of advice. This is, always to make
considerable sacrifice to get a place with some existing wood,or a few ready
grown trees upon it; especially near the site for the house. It is better to
yield a little in the extent of prospect, or in the direct proximity to a certain
locality; than to pitch your tent in a plain,—desert-like in its bareness—on
which your leafy sensibilities must suffer for half a dozen years at least, before
you can hope for any solace. It is doubtful whether there is not almost as
much interest in studying from one’s window the curious ramifications, the
variety of form, and the entire harmony, to be found in a fine old tree, as in
gazing from a site where we have no interruption to a panorama of the whole
horizon ; and we have generally found that no planters have so little courage
and faith, as those who haye commenced without the smallest group of large

trees, as a nucleus for their plantations.

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 95

and intricacy in the grounds of a residence by various
modes of arrangement ; to give a highly elegant or polished
air to places by introducing rare and foreign species ; and
to conceal all defects of surface, disagreeable views, un-
sightly buildings, or other offensive objects.

As uniformity, and grandeur of single effects, were the
aim of the old style of arrangement, so variety and har-
mony of the whole are the results for which we labor in
the modern landscape. And as the Avenue, or the straight
line, is the leading form in the geometric arrangement of
plantations, so let us enforce it upon our readers, the Group
is equally the key-note of the Modern style. The smallest
place, having only three trees, may have these pleasingly
connected in a group; and the largest and finest park—the
Blenheim or Chatsworth, of seven miles square, is only
composed of a succession of groups, becoming masses,
thickets, woods. If a demesne with the most beautiful
surface and views has been for some time stiffly and
awkwardly planted, it is exceedingly difficult to give it a
natural and agreeable air ; while many a tame level, with
scarcely a glimpse of distance, has been rendered lovely
by its charming groups of trees. How necessary, therefore,
is it, in the very outset, that the novice, before he begins
to plant, should know how to arrange a tasteful group!

Nothing, at first thought, would appear easier than to
arrange a few trees in the form of a natural and beautiful
group,—and nothing really is easier to the practised hand.
Yet experience has taught us that the generality of persons,
in commencing their first essays in ornamental planting,
almost invariably crowd their trees into a close, regular
clump, which has a most formal and unsightly appearance,

96 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

as different as possible from the easy, flowing outline of the
group.*

“Were it made the object of study,” said Price, “how
to invent something, which, under the name of ornament,
should disfigure a whole park, nothing could

* ede, be contrived to answer that purpose like a
clump. Natural groups, being formed by trees
of different ages and sizes, and at different distances from
each other, often too by a mixture of those of the largest
size with others of inferior growth, are full of variety in
their outlines ; and from the same causes, no two groups
are exactly alike. But clumps, from the trees being gene-
rally of the same age and growth, from their being planted
nearly at the same distance, in a circular form, and from
each tree being equally pressed by his neighbor, are as like
each other as so many puddings turned out of one com-
mon mould. Natural groups are full of openings and
hollows, of trees advancing before, or retiring behind each
other; all productive of intricacy, of variety, of deep
shadows and brilliant lights: in walking about them the
form changes at every step; new combinations, new lights
and shades, new inlets present themselves in succession.

* A friend of ours, at Northampton, who is a most zealous planter, related to
us a diverting expedient to which he was obliged to resort, in order to ensure
irregular groups. Busily engaged in arranging plantations of young trees on
his lawn, he was hastily obliged to leave home, and intrust the planting of the
groups to some common garden laborers, whose ideas he could not raise to a
point sufficiently high to appreciate any beauty in plantations, unless made in
regular forms and straight lines. ‘ Being well aware,” says our friend, “ that
if left to themselves I should find all my trees, on my return, in hollow squares
or circular clumps, I hastily threw up a peck of potatoes into the air, one by
one, and directed my workmen to plant a tree where every potatoe fell!
Thus, if I did not attain the maximum of beauty in grouping, I at least had
something not so offensive as geometrical figures.”

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 97

But clumps, like compact bodies of soldiers, resist attacks
from all quarters; examine them in every point of view;
walk round and round them; nv opening, no vacancy, no
stragglers ; but in the true military character, ils sont fuce
partout !*

The chief care, then, which is necessary in the forma-
tion of groups, is, not to place them in any regular or
artificial manner,—as one at each corner of a triangle,
square, octagon, or other many-sided figure; but so to
dispose them, as that the whole may exhibit the variety,
connexion, and intricacy seen in nature. “The greatest
beauty of a group of trees,” says Loudon, “as far as
respects their stems, is in the varied direction these take
as they grow into trees; but as that is, for all practical
purposes, beyond the influence of art, all we can do, is to
vary as much as possible the ground plan of groups, or
the relative positions which the stems have to each other
where they spring from the earth. This is considerable,
even where a very few trees are used, of which any
person may convince himself by placing a few dots on
paper. Thus two trees (fig. 18), or a tree and shrub,
which is the smallest group (a), may be placed in three
different positions with reference to a spectator in a fixed
point ; if he moves round them, they will first vary in form
separately, and next unite in one or two groups, according
to the position of the spectator. In like manner, three

* Those who peruse Price’s “ Essay on the Picturesque,’ cannot fail to be
entertained with the vigor with which he advocates the picturesque, and
attacks the clumping method of laying out grounds, so much practised in Eng-
land on the first introduction of the modern style. Brown was the great
practitioner at that time, and his favorite mode seems to have been to cover
the whole surface of the grounds with an unmeaning assemblage of round

bunchy clumps.

98 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

trees may be placed in four different positions ; four trees
may be placed in eight different positions (b); five trees
may be grouped in ten different ways, as to ground plan;
six may be placed in twelve different ways (c), and so on.”
(Encyclopedia of Gard.)

[Fig. 18. Grouping of Trees.)

In the composition of larger masses, similar rules must
be observed as in the smaller groups, in order to prevent
them from growing up in heavy, clumpish forms. The
outline must be flowing, here projecting out into the grass,
there receding back into the plantation, in order to take
off all appearance of stiffness and regularity. Trees of
medium and smaller size should be so interspersed with
those of larger growth, as to break up all formal sweeps in

the line produced by the tops of their summits, and oc-

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 99

casionally, low trees should be planted on the outer edge
of the mass, to connect it with the humble verdure of the
surrounding sward.

* In many parts of the union, where new residences are
being formed, or where old ones are to be improved, the
grounds will often be found, partially, or to a considerable
extent, clothed with belts or masses of wood, either pre-
viously planted, or preserved from the woodman’s axe.
How easily we may turn these to advantage in the natural
style of Landscape Gardening ; and by judicious trimming
when too thick, or additions when too much scattered,
elicit often the happiest effects, in a magical manner! In
the accompanying sketch (fig. 19), the reader will re-
cognise a portrait of a hundred familiar examples, existing
with us, of the places of persons of considerable means and
intelligence, where the house is not less meagre than the

{Fig. 19. View of a Country Residence, as frequently seen.]

stiff approach leading to it, bordered.with a formal belt of
trees. The succeeding sketch (fig. 20) exhibits this place
as improved agreeably to the principles of modern Land-
scape Gardening, not only in the plantations, but in the
house,—which appears tastefully altered from a plain un-
meaning parallelogram, to a simple, old English cottage,—-
and in the more graceful approach. Effects like these

100 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

are within the reach of very moderate means, and are
peculiarly worth attention in this country, where so much
has already been partially, and often badly executed.

ee tn tn

(Fig. 20. View of the same Residence, improved.]

Where there are large masses of wood to regulate and
arrange, much skill, taste, and judgment, are requisite, to
enable the proprietors to preserve only what is really
beautiful and picturesque, and to remove all that is super-
fluous. Most of our native woods, too, have grown so
closely, and the trees are consequently so much drawn up,
that should the improver thin out any portion, at once, to
single trees, he will be greatly disappointed if he expects
them to stand long; for the first severe autumnal gale
will almost certainly prostrate them. The only method,
therefore, is to allow them to remain in groups of con-
siderable size at first, and to thin them out as is finally
desired, when they have made stronger roots and become
more inured to the influence of the sun and air.*

But to return to grouping; what we have already en-
deavored to render familiar to the reader, may be called

* When, in thinning woods in this manner, those left standing have a mea-
gre appearance. a luxuriant growth may be promoted by the application of
manure plentifully dug in about the roots. This will also, by causing an abun-

dant growth of new roots, strengthen the trees in their position.

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 101

grouping in its simple meaning—for general effect, and
with an eye only to the natural beauty of pleasing forms.
Let us now explain, as concisely as we may, the mode of
grouping in the two schools of Landscape Gardening here-
tofore defined, that is to say, grouping and planting for
Beautiful effect, and for Picturesque effect ; as we wish it
understood that these two different expressions, in artificial
landscape, are always to a certain extent under our control.

PLantinc AND Grouprine TO pRopUcE THE Beautirut.
The elementary features of this expression our readers
will remember to be fulness and softness of outline, and
perfectly luxuriant development. To insure these in plan-
tations, we must commence by choosing mainly trees of
graceful habit and flowing outlines; and of this class of
trees, hereafter more fully illustrated, the American elm
and the maple may be taken as the type. Next, in dis-
posing them, they must usually be planted rather distant
in the groups, and often singly. We do not mean by this,
that close groups may not occasionally be formed, but there
should be a predominance of trees grouped at such a dis-
tance from each other, as to allow a full development of
the branches on every side. Or, when a close group is
planted, the trees composing it should be usually of the
same or a similar kind, in order that they may grow up
together and form one finely rounded head. Rich creepers

and blossoming vines, that grow in fine luxuriant wreaths
“and masses, are fit accompaniments to occasional groups
in this manner. Fig. 21 represents a plan of trees grouped
along a road or walk, so as to develope the Beautiful.

It is proper that we should here remark, that a distinet
species of after treatment is required for the two modes.
Trees, or groups, where the Beautiful is aimed at, should be

102 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

[Fig. 21. Grouping to produce the Beautiful. |

pruned with great care, and indeed scarcely at all, except
to remedy disease, or to correct a bad form. Above all,
the full luxuriance and development of the tree should be
encouraged by good soil, and repeated manurings when
necessary ; and that most expressively elegant fall and
droop of the branches, which so completely denotes the
Beautiful in trees, should never be warred against by any
trimming of the lower branches, which must also be care-
fully preserved against cattle, whose browsing line would
soon efface this most beautiful disposition in some of our
fine lawn trees. Clean, smooth stems, fresh and tender
bark, ‘and a softly rounded pyramidal or drooping head,
are the characteristics of a Beautiful tree. We need not
add that gently sloping ground, or surfaces rolling in easy
undulations, should accompany such plantations.
Puantine anp Grovupine To PropuUcE THE PicTuRESQUE.
All trees are admissible in a picturesque place, but a pre-
dominance must be used by the planter of what are truly
called picturesque trees, of which the larch and fir tribe,

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 103

and some species of oak, may be taken as examples. In
Picturesque plantations everything depends on intricacy

{Fig. 22. Grouping to produce the Picturesque. }

and irregularity, and grouping, therefore, must often be
done in the most irregular manner—rarely, if ever, with
single specimens, as every object should seem to connect
itself with something else ; but most frequently there should
be irregular groups, occasionally running into thickets, and
always more or less touching each other ; trusting to after
time for any thinning, should it be necessary. Fig. 22
may, as compared with Fig. 21, give an idea of picturesque
grouping.

There should be more of the wildness of the finest and
most forcible portions of natural woods or forests, in the
disposition of the trees; sometimes planting them closely,
even two or three in the same hole, at others more loose
and scattered. These will grow up into wilder and more
striking forms, the barks will be deeply furrowed and rough,
the limbs twisted and irregular, and the forms and outlines
distinctly varied. They should often be intermixed with
smaller undergrowth of a similar character, as the hazel,
hawthorn, etc., and formed into such picturesque and strik-

104 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ing groups, as painters love to study and introduce into
their pictures. Sturdy and bright vines, or such as are
themselves picturesque in their festoons and hangings,
should be allowed to clamber over occasional trees in a
negligent manner; and the surface and grass, in parts of
the scene not immediately in the neighborhood of the
mansion, may be kept short by the cropping of animals, or
alowed to grow in a more careless and loose state, like that
of tangled dells and natural woods.

There will be the same open glades in picturesque as in
beautiful plantations; but these openings, in the former,
will be bounded by groups and thickets of every form, and
of different degrees of intricacy, while in the latter the
eye will repose on softly rounded masses of foliage, or sin-
gle open groups of trees, with finely balanced and graceful
heads and branches.

In order to know how a plantation in the Picturesque
mode should be treated, after it is established, we should
reflect a moment on what constitutes picturesqueness in
any tree. This will be found to consist either in a certain
natural roughness of bark, or wildness of form and outline,
or in some accidental curve of a branch of striking manner
of growth, or perhaps of both these conjoined. A broken
or crooked limb, a leaning trunk, or several stems springing
from the same base, are frequently peculiarities that at once
stamp a tree as picturesque. Hence, it is easy to see that
the excessive care of the cultivator of trees in the graceful
school to obtain the smoothest trunks, and the most sweep-
ing, perfect, and luxuriant heads of foliage, is quite the
opposite of what is the picturesque arboriculturist’s ambi-
tion. He desires to encourage a certain wildness of growth,

and allows his trees to spring up occasionally in thickets

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 105

to assist this effect; he delights in occasional irregularity
of stem and outline, and he therefore suffers his trees here
and there to crowd each other; he admires a twisted limb
or a moss covered branch, and in pruning he therefore is
careful to leave precisely what it would be the aim of the
other to remove ; and his pruning, where it is at all neces-
sary, is directed rather towards increasing the naturally
striking and peculiar habit of the picturesque tree, than
assisting it in developing a form of unusual refinement and
symmetry. From these remarks we think the amateur
will easily divine, that planting, grouping, and culture to
produce the Beautiful, require a much less artistic eye
(though much more care and attention) than performing
the same operations to elicit the Picturesque. The charm
of a refined and polished landscape garden, as we usually
see it in the Beautiful grounds with all the richness and
beauty developed by high culture, arises from our admira-
tion of the highest perfection, the greatest beauty of form,
to which every object can be brought ; and, in trees, a
judicious selection, with high cultivation, will always pro-
duce this effect.

But in the Picturesque landscape garden there is visible
a piquancy of effect, certain bold and striking growths
and combinations, which we feel at once, if we know them
to be the result of art, to be the production of a peculiar
species of attention—not merely good, or even refined
ornamental gardening. In short, no one can be a pictu-
resque improver (if he has to begin with young plantations)
who is not himself something of an artist—who has not
studied nature with an artistical eye—and who is not
capable of imitating, eliciting, or heightening, in his plan-

tations or other portions of his residence, the picturesque

106 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

in its many variations. And we may add here, that effi-
cient and charming as is the assistance which all orna-
mental planters will derive from the study of the best
landscape engravings and pictures of distinguished artists,
they are indispensably necessary to the picturesque im-
prover. In these he will often find embodied the choicest
and most captivating studies from picturesque nature ; and
will see at a glance the effect of certain combinations of
trees, which he might otherwise puzzle himself a dozen
years to know how to produce.

After all, as the picturesque improver here will most
generally be found to be one who chooses a comparatively
wild and wooded place, we may safely say that, if he has
the true feeling for his work, he will always find it vastly
easier than those who strive after the Beautiful; as the
majority of the latter may be said to begin nearly anew—
choosing places not for wildness and intricacy of wood, but
for openness and the smiling, sunny, undulating plain,
where they must of course to a good extent plant anew.

After becoming well acquainted with grouping, we
should bring ourselves to regard those principles which
govern our improvements asa whole. We therefore must
call the attention of the improver to the two following
principles, which are to be constantly in view: the pro-
duction of a whole, and the proper connexion of the parts.

Any person who will take the trouble to reflect for a mo-
ment on the great diversity of surface, change of position,
aspects, views, etc., in different country residences, will at
once perceive how difficult, or, indeed, how impossible it
is, to lay down any fixed or exact rules for arranging plan-
tations in the modern style. What would be precisely
adapted to a hilly rolling park, would often be found entire-

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 107

ly unfit for adoption in a smooth, level surface, and the
contrary. Indeed, the chief beauty of the modern style is
the variety produced by following a few leading principles,
and applying them to different and varied localities ; un-
like the geometric style, which proceeded to level, and
arrange, and erect its avenues and squares, alike in every
situation, with all the precision and certainty of mathe-
matical demonstration.

In all grounds to be laid out, however, which are of a
lawn or park-like extent, and call for the exercise of judg-
ment and taste, the mansion or dwelling-house, being itself
the chief or leading object in the scene, should form, as it
were, the central point, to which it should be the object of
the planter to give importance. In order to do this effec-
tually, the large masses or groups of wood should cluster
round, or form the back-ground to the main edifice ; and
where the offices or out-buildings approach the same
neighborhood, they also should be embraced. We do not
mean by this to convey the idea, that a thick wood should
be planted around and in the close neighborhood of the
mansion or villa, so as to impede the free circulation of
air; but its appearance and advantages may be easily
produced by a comparatively loose plantation of groups
well connected by intermediate trees, so as to give all the
effect of a large mass. The front, and at least that side
nearest the approach road, will be left open, or nearly so ;
while the plantations on the back-ground will give dignity
and importance to the house, and at the same time effectu-
aily screen the approach to the farm buildings, and other
»bjects which require to be kept out of view; and here,
»voth for the purposes of shelter and richness of effect, a

zood proportion of evergreens should be introduced.

108 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

From this principal mass, the plantations must break
off in groups of greater or less size, corresponding to the
extent covered by it; if large, they will diverge into
masses of considerable magnitude, if of moderate size, in
groups made up of a number of trees. In the lawn front
of the house, appropriate places will be found for a number
of the most elegant single trees, or small groups of trees,
remarkable for the beauty of their forms, foliage, or blos-
soms. Care must be taken, however, in disposing these,
as well as many of the groups, that they are not placed so
as, at some future time, to interrupt or disturb the finest
points of prospect.

In more distant parts of the plantations will also appear
masses of considerable extent, perhaps upon the boundary
line, perhaps in particular situations on the sides, or in the
interior of the whole; and the various groups which are
distributed between should be so managed as, though in
most cases distinct, yet to appear to be the connecting
links which unite these distant shadows in the composition,
with the larger masses near the house. Sometimes seve-
ral small groups will be almost joined together ; at others
the effect may be kept up by a small group, aided by a few
neighboring single trees. This, for a park-like place.
Where the place is small, a pleasure-ground character is
all that can be obtained. But by employing chiefly
shrubs, and only a few trees, very similar and highly
beautiful effects may be attained.

The grand object in all this should be to open to the
eye, from the windows or front of the house, a wide
surface, partially broken up and divided by groups and
masses of trees into a number of pleasing lawns or

openings, differing in size and appearance, and producing

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 109

a charming variety in the scene, either when seen from a
given point or when examined in detail. It must not be
forgotten that, as a general rule, the grass or surface of
the lawn answers as the principal light, and the woods or
plantations as the shadows, in the same manner in nature
as in painting; and that these should be so managed as to
lead the eye to the mansion as the most important object
when seen from without, or correspond to it in grandeur
and magnitude, when looked upon from within the house.
If the surface is too much crowded with groups of foliage,
breadth of light will be found wanting; if left too bare,
there will be felt, on the other hand, an absence of the
noble effect of deep and broad shadows.

One of the loveliest charms of a fine park is, undoubted-
ly, variation or undulation of surface. Everything,
accordingly, which tends to preserve and strengthen this
pleasing character, should be kept constantly in view.
Where, therefore, there are no obvious objections to such
a course, the eminences, gentle swells, or hills, should be
planted, in preference to the hollows or depressions. By
planting the elevated portions of the grounds, their
apparent height is increased ; but by planting the hollows,
all distinction is lessened and broken up. Indeed, where
there is but a trifling and scarcely perceptible undulation,
the importance of the swells of surface already existing is
surprisingly increased, when this course of planting is
adopted ; and the whole, to the eye, appears finely
varied.

Where the grounds of the residence to be planted are
level, or nearly so, and it is desirable to confine the view,
on any or all sides, to the lawn or park itself, the boundary

groups and masses must be so connected together as, from

110 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the most striking part or parts of the prospect (near the
house for example) to answer this end. This should be
done, not by planting a continuous, uniformly thick belt of
trees round the outside of the whole ; but by so arranging
the various outer groups and thickets, that when seen from
the given points they shall appear connected in one whole.
In this way, there will be an agreeable variation in the
margin, made by the various bays, recesses, and detached
projections, which could not be so well effected if the
whole were one uniformly unbroken strip of wood.

But where the house is so elevated as to command a
more extensive view than is comprised in the demesne
itself, another course should be adopted. The grounds
planted must be made to connect themselves with the
surrounding scenery, so as not to produce any violent
contrast to the eye, when compared with the adjoining
country. If then, as is most frequently the case, the lawn
or pleasure-ground join, on either side or sides, cultivated
farm lands, the proper connexion may be kept up by
advancing a few groups or even scattered trees into the
neighboring fields. In the middle states there are but few
cultivated fields, even in ordinary farms, where there is
not to be seen, here and there, a handsome cluster of
saplings or a few full grown trees; or if not these, at
least some tall growing bushes along the fences, all of
which, by a little exercise of this leading principle of
connexion, can, by the planter of taste, be made to appear
with few or trifling additions, to divaricate from, and
ramble out of the park itself. Where the park joins
natural woods, connexion is still easier, and where it
bounds upon one of our noble rivers, lakes, or other large
sheets of water, of course connexion is not expected ; for

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 111

sudden contrast and transition is there both natural and
beautiful. |

In all cases good taste will suggest that the more polished
parts of the lawns and grounds should, whatever character
is attempted, be those nearest the house. There the most
rare and beautiful sorts of trees are displayed, and the
entire plantations agree in elegance with the style of art
evinced in the mansion itself. When there is much extent,
however, as the eye wanders from the neighborhood of the
residence, the whole evinces less polish; and gradually,
towards the furthest extremities, grows ruder, until it assi-
milates itself to the wildness of general nature around.
This, of course, applies to grounds of large extent, and must
not be so much enforced where the lawn embraced is but
moderate, and therefore comes more directly under the
eye.

It will be remembered that, in the foregoing section, we
stated it as one of the leading principles of the art of Land-
scape Gardening, that in every instance where the grounds
of a country residence have a marked natural character,
whether of beautiful or picturesque expression, the efforts
of the improver will be most successful if he contributes
by his art to aid and strengthen that expression. This
should ever be borne in mind when we are commencing
any improvements in planting that will affect the general
expression of the scene, as there are but few country resi-
dences in the United States of any importance which have
not naturally some distinct landscape character; and the
labors of the improver will be productive of much greater
satisfaction and more lasting pleasure, when they aim at
effects in keeping with the whole scene, than if no regard
be paid to this important point. This will be felt almost

112 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

intuitively by persons who, perhaps, would themselves be
incapable of describing the cause of their gratification, but
would perceive the contrary at once; as many are unable
to analyse the pleasure derived from harmony in music,
while they at once perceive the introduction of discordant
notes.

We do not intend that this principle should apply so
closely, that extensive grounds naturally picturesque shall
have nothing of the softening touches of more perfect
beauty; or that a demesne characterized by the latter ex-
pression should not be occasionally enlivened with a few
“ smart touches” of the former. This is often necessary,
indeed, to prevent tame scenery from degenerating into
insipidity, or picturesque into wildness, too great to be
appropriate in a country residence. Picturesque trees
give new spirit to groups of highly beautiful ones, and the
latter sometimes heighten by contrast the value of the
former. All of which, however, does not prevent the
predominance of the leading features of either style, suffi-
ciently strong to mark it as such; while, occasionally,
something of zest or elegance may be borrowed from the
opposite character, to suit the wishes or gratify the taste
of the proprietor.

GROUND PLANS OF ORNAMENTAL PLANTATIONS. To
illustrate partially our ideas on the arrangement of plan-
tations we place before the reader two or three examples,
premising, that the small scale to which they are reduced
prevents our giving to them any character beyond that of
the general one of the design. The first (Fig. 28) repre-
sents a portion, say one third or one half of a piece of
property selected for a country seat, and which has hitherto

been kept in tillage as ordinary farm land. The public

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 118

D le.
ele

(Fig. 23. Plan of 2 common Farm, before any improvements. |

road, a, is the boundary on one side: dd are prettily wooded
dells or hollows, which, together with a few groups near
the proposed site of the house, c, and a few scattered single
trees, make up the aggregate of the original woody embel-
lishments of the locality.

In the next figure (Fig. 24) a ground plan of the place is
given, as it would appear after having been judiciously
laid out and planted, with several years’ growth. Ata, the
approach road leaves the public highway and leads to the
house at c: from whence paths of smaller size, b, make
the circuit of the ornamental portion of the residence,
taking advantage of the wooded dells, d, originally existing,
which offer some scope for varied walks concealed from

each other by the intervening masses of thicket. It will
8

114 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Wh via

2 OE:

(Fig. 24. Plan of the foregoing grounds as a Country Seat, after ten years’ improvement]

be seen here, that one of the largest masses of wood forms
« background to the house, concealing also the out-build-
ings ; while, from the windows of the mansion itself, the
trees are so arranged as to group in the most pleasing and
effective manner; at the same time broad masses of turf
meet the eye. and fine distant views are had through the
vistas in the lines, ee. In this manner the lawn appears
divided into four distinct lawns or areas bounded by groups
of trees. instead of being dotted over with an unmeaning
contusion of irregular masses of foliage. The form of these
areas varies also with every change of position in the spec-
tator, as seen from different portions of the grounds, or difler-
ent points in the walks ; and they can be still further varied
at pleasure by adding more single trees or small groups,

whieh should always, to produce variety of outline, be

ON ‘WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 115

placed opposite the salient parts of the wood, and not in the
recesses, which latter they would appear to diminish or
clog up. The stables are shown at f; the barn at g, and
the kitchen garden adjacent at h; the orchard at i; and a
small portion of the farm lands at 4; a back entrance to
the out-buildings is shown in the rear of the orchard. The
plan has been given for a place of seventy acres, thirty of
which include the pleasure grounds, and forty the adjoin-

ing farm lands.

Figure 25 is the plan of an American mansion

(Fig. 25. Plan of a Mansion Revidence, laid out in the natural style.)

116 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. *

residence of considerable extent, only part of the farm
lands, 7, being here delineated. In this residence, as there
is no extensive view worth preserving beyond the bounds
of the estate, the pleasure grounds are surrounded by an
irregular and picturesque belt of wood. A fine natural
stream or rivulet, which ran through the estate, has been
formed into a handsome pond, or small lake, f, which adds
much to the interest of the grounds. The approach road
breaks off from the highway at the entrance lodge, a,
and proceeds in easy curves to the mansion, b; and the
groups of trees on the side of this approach nearest the
house, are so arranged that the visitor scarcely obtains
more than a glimpse of the latter, until he arrives at the
most favorable position for a first impression. From the
windows of the mansion,’at either end, the eye ranges
over groups of flowers and shrubs ; while, on the entrance
front, the trees are arranged so as to heighten the natural
expression originally existing there. On the other front,
the broad mass of light reflected from the green turf at h,
is balanced by the dark shadows of the picturesque
plantations which surround the lake, and skirt the whole
boundary. At 7, a light, inconspicuous wire fence
separates that portion of the ground, g, ornamented with
flowering shrubs and kept mown by the scythe, from the
remainder, of a park-like character, which is kept short by
the cropping of animals. At c, are shown the stables,
carriage house, etc., which, though near the approach
road, are concealed by foliage, though easily accessible by
a short curved road, returning from the house, so as not
to present any road leading in the same direction, to
detract from the dignity of the approach in going to it.
A prospect tower, or rustic pavilion, on a little eminence

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 117

overlooking the whole estate, is shown at j. The small
arabesque beds near the house are filled with masses of
choice flowering shrubs and plants; the kitchen garden is
shown at d, and the orchard at e.

Suburban villa residences are, every day, becoming
more numerous ; and in laying out the grounds around
them, and disposing the sylvan features, there is often
more ingenuity, and as much taste required, as in treating
a country residence of several hundred acres. In the
small area of from one half an acre to ten or twelve acres,
surrounding often a villa of the first class, it is desirable
to assemble many of the same features, and as much as
possible of the enjoyment, which are to be found in a large
and elegant estate. To do this, the space allotted to
various purposes, as the kitchen garden, lawn, ete., must
be judiciously portioned out, and so characterized and
divided by plantations, that the whole shall appear to be
much larger than it really is, from the fact that the
spectator is never allowed to see the whole at a single
glance ; but while each portion is complete in itself, the
plan shall present nothing incongruous or ill assorted.

An excellent illustration of this species of residence, is
afforded the reader in the accompanying plan (Fig. 26) of
the grounds of Riverside Villa. This pretty villa at
Burlington, New Jersey (to which we shall again refer),
was lately built, and the grounds, about six or eight acres
in extent, laid out, from the designs of John Notman, Esq.,
architect, of Philadelphia ; and while the latter promise a
large amount of beauty and enjoyment, scarcely anything
which can be supposed necessary for the convenience or
wants of the family, is lost sight of.

The house, a, stands quite near the bank of the river,

118 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Ne
@

peeve ee rerniy
HUVPUTEETE Ty
LVCUTLUE bart

ePQs e®

while one front commands fine water views, and the other
looks into the lawn or pleasure grounds, b. On one side
of the area is the kitchen garden, c¢, separated and
concealed from the lawn by thick groups of evergreen
and deciduous trees. At e, is a picturesque orchard, in
which the fruit trees are planted in groups instead of
straight lines, for the sake of effect. Directly under the

windows of the drawing-room is the flower garden, f; and

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 119

at g, is a seat. The walk around the lawn is also a
carriage road, affording entrance and egress from the rear
of the grounds, for garden purposes, as well as from the
front of the house. At A, is situated the ice-house; d,
hot-beds ; 7, bleaching green ; 7, gardener’s house, etc. In
the rear of the latter are the stables, which are not shown
on the plan.

The embellished farm (ferme ornée) is a pretty mode
of combining something of the beauty of the landscape
garden with the utility of the farm, and we hope to see
small country seats of this kind become more general. As
regards profit in farming, of course, all modes of arranging
or distributing land are inferior to simple square fields ;
on account of the greater facility of working the land in
rectangular plots. But we suppose the owner of the small
ornamental farm to be one with whom profit is not the
first and only consideration, but who desires to unite
with it something to gratify his taste, and to give a higher
charm to his rural occupations. In Fig. 27, is shown part
of an embellished farm, treated in the picturesque style
throughout. The various trees, under grass or tillage, are
divided and bounded by winding roads, a, bordered by
hedges of buckthorn, cedar, and hawthorn, instead of
wooden fences; the roads being wide enough to afford
a pleasant drive or walk, so as to allow the owner or
visitor to enjoy at the same time an agreeable circuit, and
a glance at all the various crops and modes of culture.
In the plan before us, the approach from the public road
is at b; the dwelling at c; the barns and farm-buildings
at d; the kitchen garden at e; and the orchard at f.
About the house are distributed some groups of trees, and
here the fields, g, are kept in grass, and are either mown

120 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

. in ns SRR ars a Os
ol EESE IN Bh Ct oa EN yo LS

aed es

[Fig. 27. View ofa Picturesque farm ( ferme ornée).}

or pastured. The fields in crops are designated h, on the
plan ; and a few picturesque groups of trees are planted,
or allowed to remain, in these, to keep up the general
character of the place. A low dell, or rocky thicket, is
situated at 7. Exceedingly interesting and agreeable
effects may be produced, at little cost, in a picturesque
farm of this kind. The hedges may be of a great variety
of suitable shrubs, and, in addition to those that we have
named, we would introduce others of the sweet brier, the
Michigan or prairie rose (admirably adapted for the
purpose), the flowering crab, and the like—beautiful and
fragrant in their growth and blossoms. These hedges we
would cause to grow thick, rather by interlacing the
branches, than by constant shearing or trimming, which
would give them a less formal, and a more free and

natural air. The winding lanes traversing the farm need

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. ‘ ey

only be gravelled near the house, in other portions being
left in grass, which will need little care, as it will generally
be kept short enough by the passing of men and vehicles
over it.

A picturesque or ornamental farm like this would be an
agreeable residence for a gentleman retiring into the coun-
try on a small farm, desirous of experimenting for himself
with all the new modes of culture. The small and irregu-
lar fields would, to him, be rather an advantage, and there
would be an air of novelty and interest about the whole
residence. Such an arrangement as this would also be
suitable for a fruit farm near one of our large towns, the
fields being occupied by orchards, vines, grass, and grain.
The house and all the buildings should be of a simple,
though picturesque and accordant character.

The cottage ornée may have more or less ground attached
to it. It is the ambition of some to have a great house and
little land, and of others (among whom we remember the
poet Cowley) to have a little house and a large garden.
The latter would seem to be the more natural taste. When
the grounds of a cottage are large, they will be treated by
the landscape gardener nearly like those of a villa residence ;
when they are smaller a more quiet and simple character
must be aimed at. But even where they consist of only
a rood or two, something tasteful and pretty may be ar-
ranged.* In Fig. 28, is shown a small piece of ground on
one side of a cottage, in which a picturesque character is
attempted to be maintained. The plantations here are
made mostly with shrubs instead of trees, the latter being

* For a variety of modes of treating the grounds of small places, see our
Designs for Cottage Residences.

122 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

only sparingly introduced for the want of room. In the
disposition of these shrubs, however, the same attention to
picturesque effect is paid as we have already pointed out
in our remarks on grouping ; and by connecting the thickets
and groups here and there, so as to conceal one walk from
the other, a surprising variety and effect will frequently be
produced in an exceedingly limited spot.

Lea Ge E ‘
ie SAN,

\ might be planted so as to produce

‘The same limited grounds

the Beautiful ; choosing, in this
case, shrubs of symmetrical
growth and fine forms, planting
and grouping them somewhat
singly, and allowing every speci-
men to attain its fullest luxuri-

ance of development.

“EEN : In making these arrangements,
(Pig. 28. Grounils of a Cottage omvée]_ even in the small area of a fourth
of an acre, we should study the same principles and en-
deavor to produce the same harmony of effects, as if we
were improving a mansion residence o° the first class. The
extent of the operations, and the sums lavished, are not by
any means necessarily connected with successful and
pleasing results. The man of correct taste will, by the aid
of vezy limited means and upon a small surface, be able
to afford the mind more true pleasure, than the improver
who lavishes thousands without it, creating no other emo-
tion than surprise or pity at the useless expenditure in-
curred ; and the Abbé Delille says nothing more true than
that,

« Ce noble emploi demand un artiste qui pense,
Prodigue de génie, et non pas de dépense.”

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 123

From the inspection of plans like these, the tyro may
learn something of the manner of arranging plantations,
and of the general effect of the natural style in particular
cases and situations. But the knowledge they afford is so
far below that obtained by an inspection of the effects in
reality, that the latter should in all cases be preferred
where it is practicable. In this style, unlike the ancient,
it is almost impossible that the same plan should exactly
suit any other situation than that for which it was intended,
for its great excellence lies in the endless variety produced
by its application to different sites, situations, and surfaces ;
developing the latent capacities of one place and heighten-
ing the charms of another.

But the leading principles as regards the formation of
plantations, which we have here endeavored briefly to
elucidate, are the same in all cases. After becoming
familiar with these, should the amateur landscape gardener
be at a loss how to proceed, he can hardly do better, as we
have before suggested, than to study and recur often to the
beautiful compositions and combinations of nature, dis-
played in her majestic groups, masses, and single trees, as
well as open glades and deep thickets; of which, fortu-
nately, in most parts of our country, checkered here and
there as it is with beautiful and picturesque scenery, there
is no dearth or scarcity. Keeping these few principles in
his mind, he will be able to detect new beauties and trans-
fer them to his own estate ; for nature is truly inexhaustible
in her resources of the Beautiful.

CLASSIFICATION OF TREES AS TO EXPRESSION. The
amateur who wishes to dispose his plantations in the natu-
ral style of Landscape Gardening so as to produce graceful

sr picturesque landscape, will be greatly aided by a study

124 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of the peculiar expression of trees individually and in com-
position. The effect of a certain tree singly is often ex-
ceedingly different from that of a group of the same trees.
To be fully aware of the effect of groups and masses
requires considerable study, and the progress in this study
may be greatly facilitated by a recurrence from groups in
nature to groups in pictures.

As a further aid to this most desirable species of infor-
mation we shall offer a few remarks on the principal vari-
eties of character afforded by trees in composition.

Almost all trees, with relation to forms, may be divided
into three kinds, viz. round-headed trees, oblong or pyra-
midal trees, and spiry-topped trees; and so far as the
expressions of the different species comprised in these dis-
tinct classes are concerned, they are, especially when
viewed at a distance (as' much of the wood seen in a
prospect of any extent necessarily must be), productive of
nearly the same general effects.

Round-headed trees compose by far the largest of these
divisions. ‘The term includes all those trees which have

an irregular surface in their boughs, more or

a less varied in outline, but exhibiting in the
(Hig.29. Round- whole a top or head comparatively round ;
as the oak, ash, beech, and walnut. They are generally
beautiful when young, from their smoothness, and the ele-
gance of their forms; but often grow picturesque when
age and time have had an opportunity to produce their
wonted effects upon them. In general, however, the dif-
ferent round-headed trees may be considered as the most
appropriate for introduction in highly-cultivated scenery,
or landscapes where the character is that of graceful or

polished beauty ; as they harmonize with almost all scenes,

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 125

buildings, and natural or artificial objects, uniting well with
other forms and doing violence to no expression of scenery.
From the numerous breaks in the surface of their foliage,
which reflect differently the lights and produce deep
shadows, there is great intricacy and variety in the heads
of many round-topped trees; and therefore, as an outer
surface to meet the eye in a plantation, they are much
softer and more pleasing than the unbroken line exhibited
by the sides of oblong or spiry-topped trees. The sky
outline also, or the upper part of the head, varies greatly
in round-topped trees from the irregularity in the dispo-
sition of the upper branches in different species, as the
oak and ash, or even between individual specimens of the
same kind of tree, as the oak, of which we rarely see
two trees alike in form and outline, although they have
the same characteristic expression; while on the other
hand no two verdant objects can bear a greater general
resemblance to each other and show more sameness ot
figure than two Lombardy poplars.

“Tn a tree,” says Uvedale Price, “of which the foliage
is everywhere full and unbroken, there can be but little
variety of form; then, as the sun strikes only on the
surface, neither can there be much variety of light and
shade; and as the apparent color of objects changes
according to the different degrees of light or shade in
which they are placed, there can be as little variety of
tint ; and lastly, as there are none of these openings that
excite and nourish curiosity, but the eye is everywhere
opposed by one uniform leafy screen, there can be as
little intricacy as variety.” From these remarks, it will
be perceived that even among round-headed trees there
may be great difference in the comparative beauty of

126 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

different sorts; and judging from the excellent standard
here laid down, it will also be seen how much in the eye
of a painter a tree with a beautifully diversified surface,
as the oak, surpasses in the composition of a scene one
with a very regular and compact surface and outline, as
the horse-chestnut. In planting large masses of wood,
therefore, or even in forming large groups in park scenery,
round-headed trees of the ordinary loose and varied
manner of growth common in the majority of forest trees,
are greatly to be preferred to all others. When they
cover large tracts, as several acres, they convey an
emotion of grandeur to the mind; when they form vast
forests of thousands of acres, they produce a feeling of
sublimity ; in the landscape garden when they stand
alone, or in fine groups, they are graceful or beautiful.
While young they have an elegant appearance; when old
they generally become majestic or picturesque. Other
trees may suit scenery or scenes of particular and
decided characters, but round-headed trees are decidedly
the chief adornment of general landscape.

Spiry-topped trees (Fig. 30) are distinguished by
straight leading stems and horizontal branches, which are
comparatively small, and taper gradually

to a point. The foliage is generally ever-

green, and in most trees of. this class

(Big. 40. Spiry-pere’ hangs in parallel or drooping tufts from

the branches. The various evergreen trees, composing
the spruce and fir families, most of the pines, the cedar,
and among deciduous trees, the larch, belong to this
division. Their hue is generally much darker than that

of deciduous trees, and there is a strong similarity, or

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 127

almost sameness, in the different kinds of trees which
may properly be called spiry-topped.

From their sameness of form and surface this class
of trees, when planted in large tracts or masses, gives
much less pleasure than round-headed trees ; and the eye
is soon wearied with the monotony of appearance
presented by long rows, groups, or masses, of the same
form, outline, and appearance ; to say nothing of the effect
of the uniform dark color, unrelieved by the warmer tints
of deciduous trees. Any one can bear testimony to this,
who has travelled through a pine, hemlock, or fir forest,
where he could not fail to be struck with its gloom,
tediousness, and monotony, especially when contrasted
with the variety and beauty in a natural wood of
deciduous, round-headeu trees.

Although spiry-topped trees in large masses cannot be
generally admired for ornamental plantations, yet they
have a character of their own, which is very striking and
peculiar, and we may add, in a high degree valuable to
the Landscape Gardener. Their general expression when
single or scattered is extremely spirited, wild, and
picturesque; and when judiciously introduced into
artificial scenery, they produce the most charming and
unique effects. “The situations where they have most
effect is among rocks and in very irregular surfaces,.and
especially on the steep sides of high mountains, where their
forms and the direction of their growth seem to harmonize
with the pointed rocky summits.” Fir and pine forests are
extremely dull- and monotonous in. sandy plains and
smooth surfaces (as in the pine barrens of the southern

states); but among the broken rocks, craggy precipices,

128 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and otherwise endlessly varied surfaces (as in the Alps,
abroad, and the various rocky heights in the Highlands
of the Hudson and the Alleghanies, at home) they are
full of variety. It will readily be seen, therefore, that
spiry-topped trees should always be planted in considerable
quantities in wild, broken, and picturesque scenes, where
they will appear perfectly in keeping, and add wonderfully
to the peculiar beauty of the situation. In all grounds
where there are abruptly varied surfaces, steep banks, or
rocky precipices, this class of trees lends its efficient aid
to strengthen the prevailing beauty, and to complete the
finish of the picture. In smooth, level surfaces, though
spiry-topped trees cannot be thus extensively employed,
they are by no means to be neglected or thought valueless,
but may be so combined and mingled with other round-
headed and oblong-headed trees, as to produce very rich
and pleasing effects. A tall larch or two, or a few spruces
rising out of the centre of a group, give it life and spirit,
and add greatly, both by contrast of form and color, to the
force of round-headed trees. <A stately and regular white
pine or hemlock, or a few thin groups of the same trees
peeping out from amidst, or bordering a large mass of
deciduous trees, have great power in adding to the interest
which the same awakens in the mind of the spectator.
Care must be taken, however, that the very spirited effect
which is here aimed at, is not itself defeated by the over
anxiety of the planter, who, in scattering too profusely
these very strongly marked trees, makes them at last so
plentiful, as to give the whole a mingled and confused
look, in which neither the graceful and sweeping outlines
of the round-headed nor the picturesque summits of the
spiry-topped trees predominate; as the former decidedly

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 129

should, in all scenes where an expression of peculiarly
irregular kind is not aimed at.

The larch, to which we shall hereafter recur at some
length, may be considered one of the most picturesque
trees of this division ; and being more rapid in its growth
than most evergreens, it may be used as a substitute for,
or in conjunction with them, where effect is speedily
desired.

Oblong-headed trees show heads of foliage more length-
ened out, more formal, and generally more tapering, than
round-headed ones. They differ from spiry-
topped trees in having upright branches instead

_ of horizontal ones, and in forming a conical or
iFig, 3h. ohne pyramidal mass of foliage, instead of a spiry,
tufted one. They are mostly deciduous; and approaching
more nearly to round-headed trees than spiry-topped ones
do, they may perhaps be more frequently introduced.
The Lombardy poplar may be considered the representa-
tive of this division, as the oak is of the first, and the
larch and fir of the second. Abroad, the oriental cypress,
an evergreen, is used to produce similar effects in
scenery.

The great use of the Lombardy poplar, and other
similar trees in composition, is to relieve or break into
groups, large masses of wood. This it does very
effectually, when its tall summit rises at intervals from
among round-headed trees, forming pyramidal centres
to groups where there was only a swelling and flowing
outline. Formal rows, or groups of oblong-headed trees,
however, are tiresome and monotonous to the last degree ;
a straight line of them being scarcely better in appearance

than a tall, stiff, gigantic hedge. Examples of this can be
9

130 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

easily found in many parts of the Union where the crude
and formal taste of proprietors, by leading them to plant
long lines of Lombardy poplars, has had the effect of
destroying the beauty of many a fine prospect and
building.

Conical or oblong-headed trees, when carefully employed,
are very effective for purposes of contrast, in conjunction
with horizontal lines of. buildings such as we see in
Grecian or Italian architecture. Near such edifices,
sparingly introduced, and mingled in small proportion
with round-headed trees, they contrast advantageously
with the long cornices, flat roofs, and horizontal lines that
predominate in their exteriors. Lombardy poplars are
often thus introduced in pictures of Italian scenery, where
they sometimes break the formality of a long line of wall
in the happiest manner. Nevertheless, if they should be
indiscriminately employed, or even used in any con-
siderable portion in the decoration of the ground
immediately adjoining a building of any pretensions,
they would inevitably defeat this purpose, and by their
tall and formal growth diminish the apparent magnitude,
as well as the elegance of the house.

Drooping trees, though often classed with oblong-
headed trees, differ from them in so many particulars,
that they deserve to be ranked under a separate head.
To this class belong the weeping willow, the weeping
birch, the drooping elm, etc. Their prominent charac-
teristics are gracefulness and elegance ; and we consider
them as unfit, therefore, to be employed to any extent
in scenes where it is desirable to keep up the expression
of a wild or highly picturesque character. As single
objects, or tastefully grouped in beautiful landscape, they

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 131

are in excellent keeping, and contribute much to give
value to the leading expression.

When drooping trees are mixed indiscriminately with
other round-headed trees in the composition of groups
or masses, much of their individual character is lost, as
it depends not so much on the top (as in oblong and
spiry trees) as upon the side branches, which are of
course concealed by those of the adjoining trees. Droop-
ing trees, therefore, as elms, birches, etc., are shown to
the best advantage on the borders of groups or the
boundaries of plantations. It must not be forgotten, but
constantly kept in mind, that all strongly marked trees,
like bright colors in pictures, only admit of occasional
employment; and that the very object aimed at in
introducing them will be defeated if they are brought
into the lawn and park in masses, and distributed
heedlessly on every side. An English author very justly
remarks, therefore, that the poplar, the willow, and the
drooping birch, are “most dangerous trees in the hands
of a planter who has not considerable knowledge and
good taste in the composition of a landscape.” Some of
them, as the native elm, from their abounding in our
own woods, may appear oftener; while others which
have a peculiar and exotic look, as the weeping willow,
should only be seen in situations where they either do
not disturb the prevailing expression, or (which is better)
where they are evidently in good keeping. “The weeping
willow,” says Gilpin, with his usual good taste, “is not
adapted to sublime objects. We wish it not to screen
the broken buttress and Gothic windows of an abbey,
or to overshadow the battlements of a ruined castle.
These offices it resigns to the oak, whose dignity can

132 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

support them. The weeping willow seeks an humble
scene—some romantic footpath bridge, which it half
conceals, or some grassy pool over which it hangs its
streaming foliage,

« And dips
Its pendent boughs, as if to drink.” *

The manner in which a picturesque bit of landscape
can be supported by picturesque spiry-topped trees, and
its expression degraded by the injudicious employment
of graceful drooping trees, will be apparent to the reader
in the two accompanying little sketches. In the first (Fig.

~ 82), the abrupt hill, the rapid
2 mountain torrent, and the distant

Alpine summits, are in fine keep-

ee. * ing with the tall spiry larches and
(Fig. oy Trees mikdonined firs, which, shooting up on either
side of the old bridge, occupy the foreground. In the
second (Fig. 33), there is evidently something discordant
in the scene which strikes the spectator at first sight; this
is the misplaced introduction of the large willows, which
belong to a scene very different
in character. Imagine a removal
of the surrounding hills, ard let

- the rapid stream spread out into a

smooth peaceful lake with gradu-
ally retiring shores, and the blue summits in the distance,
and then the willows will harmonize admirably.

Having now described the peculiar characteristics of
these different classes of round-headed, spiry-topped,
oblong, and drooping trees, we should consider the proper

* Forest Scenery, p. 133-

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 133

method by which a harmonious combination of the
different forms composing them may be made so as not
to violate correct principles of taste. An indiscriminate
mixture of their different forms would, it is evident,
produce anything but an agreeable effect. For example,
let a person plant together in a group, three trees of
totally opposite forms and expressions, viz. a weeping
willow, an oak, and a poplar; and the expression of the
whole would be destroyed by the confusion resulting
from their discordant forms. On the other hand, the
mixture of trees that exactly correspond in their forms, if
these forms, as in oblong or drooping trees, are similar,
will infallibly create sameness. In order then to produce
beautiful variety which shall neither on the one side run
into confusion, nor on the other verge into monotony, it
is requisite to give some little attention to the harmony
of form and color in the composition of trees in artificial
plantations. |

The only rules which we can suggest to govern the
planter are these: First, if a certain leading expression is
desired in a group of trees, together with as great a variety
as possible, such species must be chosen as harmonize with
each other in certain leading points. And, secondly, in
occasionally intermingling trees of opposite characters,
discordance may be prevented, and harmonious expression
promoted, by interposing other trees of an intermediate
character.

In the first case, suppose it is desired to form a group
of trees, in which gracefulness must be the leading
expression. The willow alone would have the effect; but
in groups, willows alone produce sameness: in order,
therefore, to give variety, we must choose other trees

134 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

which, while they differ from the willow in some
particulars, agree in others. The elm has much larger
and darker foliage, while it has also a drooping spray ; the
weeping birch differs in its leaves, but agrees in the pensile
flow of its branches; the common birch has few pendent
boughs, but resembles in the airy lightness of its leaves ;
and the three-thorned acacia, though its branches are
horizontal, has delicate foliage of nearly the same hue and
floating lightness as the willow. Here we have a group
of five trees, which is, in the whole, full of gracefulness
and variety, while there is nothing in the composition
inharmonious to the practised eye.

To illustrate the second case, let us suppose a long
sweeping outline of maples, birches, and other light,
mellow-colored trees, which the improver wishes to vary
and break into groups, by spiry-topped, evergreen trees.
It is evident, that if these trees were planted in such a
manuer as to peer abruptly out of the light-colored foliage
of the former trees, in dark or almost black masses of
tapering verdure, the effect would be by no means so
satisfactory and pleasing, as if there were a_ partial
transition from the mellow, pale green of the maples, etc.,
to the darker hues of the oak, ash, or beech, and finally
the sombre tint of the evergreens. Thus much for the
coloring ; and if, in addition to this, oblong-headed trees
or pyramidal trees were also placed near and partly
intermingled with the spiry-topped ones, the unity of the
whole composition would be still more complete.*

* We are persuaded that very few persons are aware of the beauty, varied
and endless, that may be produced by arranging trees with regard to their
coloring. It requires the eye and genius of a Claude or a Poussin, to
develope all these hidden beauties of harmonious combination. Gilpin rightly

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 135

Contrasts, again, are often admissible in woody scenery ;
and we would not wish to lose many of our most superb
trees, because they could not be introduced in particular
portions of landscape. Contrasts in trees may be so
violent as to be displeasing; as in the example of the
groups of the three trees, the willow, poplar, and oak:
or they may be such as to produce spirited and pleasing
effects. This must be effected by planting the different
divisions of trees, first, in small leading groups, and then
by effecting a union between the groups of different
character, by intermingling those of the nearest similarity _
into and near the groups: in this way, by easy transitions
from the drooping to the round-headed, and from these to
the tapering trees, the whole of the foliage and forms
harmonize well.

|Fig. 34. Example in grouping. ]

“ Trees,” observes Mr. Whately, in his elegant treatise
on this subject, “which differ in but one of these
circumstances, of shape, green, or growth, though they
agree in every other, are sufficiently distinguished for the

says, in speaking of the dark Scotch fir, “ with regard to color in general, I
think I speak the language of painting, when I assert that the picturesque eye
makes little distinction in this matter. It has no attachment to one color in
preference to another, but considers the beauty of all coloring as resulting, not
from the colors themselves, but almost entirely from their harmony with other
colors in their neighborhood. So that as the Scotch fir tree is combined or
stationed, it forms a beautiful umbrage or a murky spot.”

136 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

purpose of variety ; if they differ in two or three, they
become contrasts: if in all, they are opposite, and seldom
group well together. Those, on the contrary, which are
of one character, and are distinguished only as the
characteristic mark is strongly or faintly impressed upon
them, form a beautiful mass, and unity is preserved
without sameness.’’*

There is another circumstance connected with the
color of trees, that will doubtless suggest itself to the
improver of taste, the knowledge of which may sometimes
be turned to valuable account. We mean the effects
produced in the apparent coloring of a landscape by
distance, which painters term aérial perspective. Stand-
ing at a certain position in a scene, the coloring is deep,
rich, and full in the foreground, more tender and mellow
in the middle-ground, and softening to a pale tint in the

distance.

«‘ Where to the eye three well marked distances
Spread their peculiar coloring, vivid green,
Warm brown, and black opake the foreground bears
Conspicuous: sober olive coldly marks
The second distance; thence the third declines
In softer blue, or lessening still, is lost
Tn fainted purple. When thy taste is call’d
To deck a scene where nature’s self presents
All these distinct gradations, then rejoice
As does the Painter, and like him apply
Thy colors; plant thou on each separate part
Its proper foliage.”

Advantage may occasionally be taken of this peculiarity
in the gradation of color, in Landscape Gardening, by the

creation, as it were, of an artificial distance. In grounds

* Observations on Moder Gardening.

ON WOOD AND PLANTATIONS. 137

and scenes of limited extent, the apparent size and
breadth may be increased, by planting a majority of the
trees in the foreground, of dark tints, and the boundary
with foliage of a much lighter hue. In the same way, the
apparent breadth of a piece of water will be greatly added
to, by placing the paler colored trees on the shore
opposite to the spectator. These hints will suggest other
ideas and examples of a similar nature, to the minds
of those who are alive to the more minute and exquisite
beauties of the landscape.

An acquaintance, individually, with the different
species of trees of indigenous and foreign growth, which
may be cultivated with success in this climate, is
absolutely essential to the amateur or the professor of
Landscape Gardening. The tardiness or rapidity of their
growth, the periods at which their leaves and flowers
expand, the soils they love best, and their various habits
and characters, are all subjects of the highest interest to
him. In short, as a love of the country almost commences
with a knowledge of its peculiar characteristics, the pure
air, the fresh enamelled turf, and the luxuriance and
beauty of the whole landscape; so the taste for the
embellishment of Rural Residences must grow out of an
admiration for beautiful trees, and the delightful effects
they are capable of producing in the hands of persons of
taste and lovers of nature.

Admitting this, we think, in the comparatively meagre
state of general information on this subject among us, we
shall render an acceptable service to the novice, by giving
a somewhat detailed description of the character and
habits of most of the finest hardy forest and ornamental
trees. Among those living in the country, there are

138 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

many who care little for the beauties of Landscape
Gardening, who are yet interested in those trees which
are remarkable for the beauty of their forms, their foliage,
their blossoms, or their useful purposes. This, we hope,
will be a sufficient explanation for the apparently
disproportionate number of pages which we shall devote
to this part of our subject.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 139

SECTION IV.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES.

The History and Description of all the finest hardy Deciduous Trees. ReMARKS ON
THEIR EFFECTS IN LANDSCAPE GARDENING, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN COMPOSITION. Their
Cultivation, etc. The Oak. The Elm. The Ash. The Linden. The Beech. The
Poplar. The Horse-chestnut. The Birch. The Alder. The Maple. The Locust.
The Three-thorned Acacia. The Judas-tree. The Chestnut. The Osage Orange.
The Mulberry. The Paper Mulberry. The SweetGum. The Walnut. The Hickory
The Mountain Ash. The Ailantus. The Kentucky Coffee. The Willow. The
Sassafras. The Catalpa. The Persimon. The Pepperidge. The Thorn. The
Magnolia. The Tulip. The Dogwood. The Salisburia. The Paulonia. The Virgilia.
The Cypress. The Larch, etc.

O gloriosi spiriti de gli boschi,
O Eco, o antri foschi, o chiare linfe,
O faretrate ninfe, o agresti Pani,
O Satiri e Silvani, o Fauni e Driadi, i
Naiadi ed Amadriadi, o Semidee
Oreadi e Napee.—
SANNAZZARO.
“O spirits of the woods,
Echoes and solitudes, and lakes of light ;
O quivered virgins bright, Pan’s rustical
Satyrs and sylvans all, dryads and ye
That up the mountains be ; and ye beneath
In meadow or in flowery heath.” -

Tue Oak. Quercus.
Nat. Ord. Corylacee. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

HE Arcadians believed the oak to have
been the first created of all trees; and

when we consider its great and surpassing

utility and beauty, we are fully disposed
to concede it the first rank among the denizens of the

140 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

forest. Springing up with a noble trunk, and stretching

out its broad limbs over the soil,

«“ These monarchs of the wood,
Dark, gnarled, centennial oaks,’

seem proudly to bid defiance to time ; and while generations
of man appear and disappear, they withstand the storms of
a thousand winters, and seem: only to grow more venerable
and majestic. They are mentioned in the oldest histories ;
we are told that Absalom was caught by his hair in “ the
thick boughs of a great oak ;” and Herodotus informs us
that the first oracle was that of Dodona, set up in the
celebrated oak grove of that name. There, at first, the
oracles were delivered by the priestesses, but, as was after-
wards believed, by the inspired oaks themselves—

«Which in Dodona did enshrine,
So faith too fondly deemed, a voice divine.”

Acorns, the fruit of the oak, appear to have been held in
considerable estimation as an article of food among the
ancients. Not only were the swine fattened upon them, as
in our own forests, but they were ground into flour, with
which bread was made by the poorer classes. Lucretius
mentions, that before grain was known they were the com-
mon food of man; but we suppose the fruit of the chestnut

may also have been included under that term.

«That oake whose acornes were our foode before
The Cerese seede of mortal man was knowne.”

SPENSER.

The civic crown, given in the palmy days of Rome to
the most celebrated men, was also composed of oak leaves.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 141

It should not be forgotten that the oak was worshipped
by the ancient Britons. Baal or Yiaoul (whence Yule)
was the god of fire, whose symbol was an oak. Hence at
his festival, which was at Christmas, the ceremony of kin-
dling the Yule log was performed among the ancient Druids.
This fire was kept perpetual throughout the year, and the
hearths of all the people were annually lighted from these
sacred fires every Christmas. We believe the curious
custom is still extant in some remote parts of England,
where the “ Yule log” is ushered in with much glee and
rejoicing once a year.

As an ornamental object we consider the oak the most
varied in expression, the most beautiful, grand, majestic,
and picturesque of all deciduous trees. The enormous
size and extreme old age to which it attains in a favorable’
situation, the great space of ground that it covers with its
branches, and the strength and hardihood of the tree, all
contribute to stamp it with the character of dignity and
grandeur beyond any other compeer of the forest. When
young its fine foliage (singularly varied in many of our
native species) and its thrifty form render it a beautiful
tree. But it is not until the oak has attained considerable
size that it displays its true character, and only when at an
age that would terminate the existence of most other trees
that it exhibits all its magnificence. Then its deeply fur-
rowed trunk is covered with mosses ; its huge branches,
each a tree, spreading out horizontally from the trunk with
great boldness, its trunk of huge dimension, and its “high

top, bald with dry antiquity ;” all these, its true character-
istics, stamp the oak, as Virgil has expressed it in his

Georgics—

142 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

« Jove’s own tree,
That holds the woods in awful sovereignty ;
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal man contend in vain.
Full in the raidst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands,
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
Drypen’s TRANS.

“The oak,” says Gilpin, “is confessedly the most pictu-
resque tree in itself, and the most accommodating in com-
position. It refuses no subject either in natural or in
artificial landscape. It is suited to the grandest, and may
with propriety be introduced into the most pastoral. It
adds new dignity to the ruined tower and the Gothic arch ;
and by stretching its wild, moss-grown branches athwart
their ivied walls, it gives them a kind of majesty coeval
with itself; at the same time its propriety is still preserved
if it throws its arms over the purling brook or the mantling
pool, where it beholds

“ Tts reverend image in the expanse below.”

Milton introduces it happily even in the lowest scene—

“ Hard by a cottage chimney smokes,
From between two aged oaks.”

The oak is not only one of the grandest and most pictu-
resque objects as a single tree upon a lawn, but it is equally
unrivalled for groups and masses. There is a breadth about
the lights and shadows reflected and embosomed in its
foliage, a singular freedom and boldness in its outline, and
a pleasing richness and intricacy in its huge ramification
of branch and limb, that render it highly adapted to these
purposes. Some trees, as the willow or the spiry poplar,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 143

though pleasing singly, are monotonous to the last degree
when planted in quantities. Not so, however, with the
oak, as there is no tree, when forming a wood entirely by
itself, which affords so great a variety of form and dispo-
sition, light and shade, symmetry and irregularity, as this
king of the forests.

To arrive at its highest perfection, ample space on every
side must be allowed the oak. <A free exposure to the sun
and air, and a deep mellow soil, are highly necessary to its
fullest amplitude. For this reason, the oaks of our forests,

(Fig. 35. The Charter Oak, Hartford.]

being thickly crowded, are seldom of extraordinary size ;
and there are more truly majestic oaks in the parks of
England than are to be found in the whole cultivated por-
tion of the United States. Here and there, however,
throughout our country may be seen a solitary oak of great

144 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

age and immense size, which attests the fitness of the soil
and climate, and displays the grandeur of our native species.
The Wadsworth Oak near Geneseo, N. Y., of extraordinary
dimensions, the product of one of our most fertile valleys,
has attracted the admiration of hundreds of travellers on
the route to Niagara. Its trunk measures thirty-six feet in
circumference. The celebrated Charter Oak at Hartford,
which has figured so conspicuously in the history of New
England, is still existing in a green old age, one of the most
interesting monuments of the past to be found in the
country.*

Near the village of Flushing, Long Island, on the farm
of Judge Lawrence, is growing one of the noblest oaks in
the country. It is truly park-like in its dimensions, the
circumference of the trunk being nearly thirty feet, and its
majestic head of corresponding dignity. In the deep
alluvial soil of the western valleys, the oak often assumes
a grand aspect, and bears witness to the wonderful fertility

of the soil in that region.+

* The house seen in the engraving representa the old “ Wyllis House.”
This family, its former occupants, furnished the Secretary of State for Con-
necticut for more than a century. Near the Charter Oak are some of the
apple trees planted by the Pilgrims, evidently Pearmains. Some of these,
lately felled, have been examined, and are found to be more than 200 years
old.

t The following well authenticated description of a famous English oak, is
worth a record here. “Close by the gate of the water walk of Magdalen
College, Oxford, grew an oak which perhaps stood there a sapling when Alfred
the Great founded the University, This period only includes a space of 900
years, which is no great age for an oak. About 500 years after the time of
Alfred, Dr. Stukely tells us, William of Waynefleet expressly ordered his college
(Magdalen College) to be founded near the Great Oak ; and an oak could not,
I think, be less than 500 years of age to merit that title, together with the
honor of fixing the site of a college. When the magnificence of Cardinal
Wolsey erected that handsome tower which is so ornamental to the whole

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 145

As beauty is often closely connected in our minds with
utility, we must be allowed a word on the great value of
this tree. For its useful properties the oak has scarcely
any superior. “To enumerate,” says old Evelyn in his
quaint Sylva, “the incomparable uses of this wood were
needless ; but so precious was the esteem of it of old, there
was an express law among the Twelve Tables concerning
the very gathering of the acorns, though they should be
found fallen on another man’s ground. The land and the
sea do sufficiently speak for the improvement of this excel-
lent material, for houses and ships, cities and navies, are
builded with it.” In almost all the finest buildings of

building, this tree might probably be in the meridian of its glory. It was
afterwards much injured in the reign of Charles II., when the present walks
were laid out. Its roots were disturbed, and from that time it declined fast
and became a mere trunk. The oldest members of the University can hardly
recollect it in better plight; but the faithful records of history have handed
down its ancient dimensions. Through a space of 16 yards on every side it
once flung its branches; and under its magnificent pavilion could have shel-
tered with ease 3,000 men. In the summer of 1778 this magnificent ruin fell
to the ground. From a part of its ruins a chair has been made for the Presi-
dent of the College, which will long continue its memory.”—Gilpin’s Forest
Scenery.

The King Oak, Windsor Forest, once the favorite tree of William the Con-
queror, is now more than 1,000 years old, and the interior of the trunk is quite
hollow. Professor Bumet, who described it, lunched inside this tree with a
party, and says it is capable of accommodating ten or twelve persons com-
fortably at dinner, sitting.

The Beggar's Oak in Bagot’s Park is twenty feet in girth five feet from the
ground. The roots rise above the surface in a very extraordinary manner, so
as to furnish a natural seat for the beggars chancing to pass along the pathway
near it; and the cireumference taken there is 68 feet. The branches extend
from the tree 48 feet in every direction.

The Wallace Oak at Edenslee, near where Wallace was born, is a noble
tree 21 feet in circumference. It is 67 feet high, and its branches extend 45
feet east, 36 west, 30 south, and 25 north. Wallace and 300 of his men are
said to have hid themselves from the English among the branches of this tree,
which was then in full leaf.

146 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Europe, particularly the vast Gothic edifices of the middle
ages, oak was the chief material for the interior. The rich
old wainscot, the innumerable carvings and decorations of
those days were executed in this material. In America
the vast pine forests produce a wood easily wrought, which
has in a great measure superseded the use of this fine tim-
ber, and the exportation of immense quantities of the
former to the eastern continent, has even in some degree
lessened its consumption abroad. But for certain purposes
where great strength and durability are required, the oak
will always take the precedence claimed for it by Evelyn.*
The English oak is probably rather superior in these quali-
ties to most of our American species ; but for ship-building
the Live oak of the southern states is not exceeded by any
timber in the world.

Different species of Oak. This country is peculiarly
rich in various kinds of oak ; Michaux enumerating no less
than forty species indigenous to North America. Of these
the most useful are the Live oak (Quercus virens), of such
inestimable value for ship-building ; the Spanish oak (Q.
falcata) ; the Red oak (Q. rubra), etc., the bark of which
is extensively used in tanning; the Quercitron or Black
oak, which is highly valuable as affording a fine yellow or
browa dye for wool, silks, paper-hangings, etc.; and the
White oak, which is chiefly used for timber. We shall

* The doors of the inner chapels of Westminster, it is stated, are of the same
age as the original building ; and as the original ancient edifice was founded
in 611 they must consequently be more than 1,200 years old. Professor Bur-
net, in his curious Amenitates Quercinee, observes, that many of the stakes
driven into the Thames by the Ancient Britons, to impede the progress of
Julius Cesar, are in a good state of preservation, “having withstood the
destroyer time nearly 2,000 years.”

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 147

here describe only a few of those which are most entitled
to the consideration of the planter, either for their valuable
properties or as ornamental trees, and calculated for plant-
ing in woods or single masses.

The White oak. (Quercus alba.) This is one of the most
common of the American oaks, being very generally dis-
tributed over the country, from Canada to the southern
states. In good strong soils it forms a tree 70 or 80 feet
high, with wide extending branches; but its growth de-
pends much upon this circumstance. It may readily be
known even in winter by its whitish bark, and by the dry
and withered leaves which often hang upon this species
through the whole of that season. The leaves are about
four inches wide and six in length, divided uniformly into
rounded lobes without points: these lobes are deeper in
damp soils. When the leaves first unfold in the spring
they are downy beneath, but when fully grown they are
quite smooth, and pale green on the upper surface and
whitish or glaucous below. The acorn is oval and the cup
somewhat flattened at the base. This is the most valuable
of all our native oaks, immense quantities of the timber
being used for various purposes in building ; and staves of
the white oak for barrels are in universal use throughout
the Union. The great occasional size and fine form of this
tree, in some natural situations, prove how noble an object
it would become when allowed to expand in full vigor and
majesty in the open air and light of the park. It more
nearly approaches the English oak in appearance than any
other American species.

Rock Chestnut oak. (Q. Prinus Monticola.) This is
one of the most ornamental of our oaks, and is found in
considerable abundance in the middle states. It has the

148 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

peculiar advantage of growing well on the most barren and
rocky soils, and can therefore be advantageously employed
by the landscape gardener, when a steep, dry, rocky bank is
to be covered with trees. In deep, mellow soil, its growth
is wonderfully vigorous, and it rapidly attains a height of
50 or 60 feet, with a corresponding diameter. The head
is rather more symmetrical in form and outline than most
trees of this genus, and the stem, in free, open places, shoots
up into a lofty trunk. The leaves are five or six inches
long, three or four broad, oval and uniformly denticulated,
with the teeth more regular but less acute than the Chest-
nut white oak. When beginning to open in the spring
they are covered with a thick down; but when fully ex-
panded they are perfectly smooth and of a delicate texture.
Michaux.

Chestnut White oak. (Quercus Prinus palustris.)
This species much resembles the last, but differs in
having longer leaves, which are obovate, and deeply
toothed. It is sparingly found in the northern states, and
attains its greatest altitude in the south, where it is often
seen 90 feet in height. Though generally found in the
neighborhood of swamps and low grounds, it grows with
wonderful rapidity in a good, moderately dry soil, and
from the beauty of its fine spreading head, and the
quickness of its growth, is highly deserving of introduction
into our plantations.

The Yellow oak. (Q. Prinus acuminata.) The
Yellow oak may be found scattered through our woods
over nearly the whole of the Union. Its leaves are
lanceolate, and regularly toothed, light green above, and
whitish beneath; the acorns small. It forms a stately

tree, 70 feet high; and the branches are more upright in

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 149

their growth, and more clustering, as it were, round the
central trunk, than other species. The beauty of its long
pointed leaves, and their peculiar mode of growth,
recommend it to mingle with other trees, to which it
will add variety.

The Pin oak. (Q. palustris.) The Pin oak forms a
tree in moist situations, varying in height from 60 to 80
feet. The great number of small branches intermingled
with the large ones, have given rise to the name of this
variety. It is a hardy, free growing species, particularly
upon moist soils. Loudon considers it, from its “ far
extending, drooping branches, and light and elegant
foliage,” among the most graceful of oaks. It is well
adapted to small groups, and is one of the most thrifty
growing and easily obtained of all our northern oaks.

The Willow oak. (Q. Phellos.) This remarkable
species of oak may be recognised at once by its narrow,
entire leaves, shaped almost like those of the willow, and
about the same size, though thicker in texture. It is not
found wild nerth of the barrens of New Jersey, where it
grows plentifully, but thrives well in cultivation much
further north. The stem of this tree is remarkably smooth
in every stage of its growth. It is so different in
appearance and character from the other species of this
genus, that in plantations it would never be recognised by
a person not conversant with oaks, as one of the family.
It deserves to be introduced into landscapes for its
singularity as an oak, and its lightness and elegance of
foliage individually.

The Mossy-cup oak. (Q. oliveformis.) This is so
called because the scales of the cups terminate in a long,
moss-like fringe, nearly covering the acorn. It is quite a

150 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

rare species, being only found on the upper banks of the
Hudson, and on the Genesee river. The foliage is fine,
large, and deeply cut, and the lower branches of the tree
droop in a beautiful manner when it has attained some
considerable size. Quercus macrocarpa, the Over-cup
White oak, is another beautiful kind found in the western
states, which a good deal resembles the Mossy-cup oak in
the acorn. The foliage, however, is uncommonly fine,
being the largest in size of any American species; fifteen
inches long, and eight broad. It is a noble tree, with fine
deep green foliage ; and the growth of a specimen planted
in our grounds has been remarkably vigorous.

Scarlet oak. (Quercus coccinea.) A native of the
middle states; a noble tree, often eighty feet high. The
leaves, borne on long petioles, are a bright lively green on
both surfaces, with four deep cuts on each side, widest at
the bottom. The great and peculiar beauty of this tree,
we conceive to be its property of assuming a deep scarlet
tint in autumn. At that period it may, at a great
distance, be distinguished from all other oaks, and indeed
from every other forest tree. It is highly worthy of a
place in every plantation.

The Live oak. (Quercus virens.) This fine species
will not thrive north of Virginia. Its imperishable timber
is the most valuable in our forests; and, at the south, it is
a fine park tree, when cultivated, growing about 40 feet
high, with, however, a rather wide and low head. The
thick oval leaves are evergreen, and it is much to be
regretted that this noble tree will not bear our northern
winters.

The English Royal oak. (Q.robur.) This is the great
representative of the family in Europe, and is one of the

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. kat

most magnificent of the genus, growing often in the fine
old woods and parks of England, to eighty and one
hundred feet in height. The branches spread over a
great surface. “The leaves are petiolated, smooth, and
of a uniform color on both sides, enlarged towards the
summit, and very coarsely toothed.” As a single tree for
park scenery, this equals any American species in majesty
of form, though it is deficient in individual beauty of
foliage to some of our oaks. It is to be found for sale in
our nurseries, and we hope will become well known
among us. The timber is closer grained and more
durable, though less elastic than the best American oak ;
and Michaux, in his Sylva, recommends its introduction
into this country largely, on these accounts.

The Turkey oak. (Q. Cerris.) There are two
beautiful hybrid varieties of this species, which have
been raised in England by Messrs. Lucombe and Fulham,
which we hope will yet be found in our ornamental
plantations. They are partially evergreen in winter,
remarkably luxuriant in their growth, attaining a height
of seventy or eighty feet, and elegant in foliage and
outline. The Lucombe and Fulham oaks grow from one
to five feet in a season; the trees assume a beautiful
pyramidal shape, and as they retain their fine glossy
leaves till May, they would form a fine contrast to other
deciduous trees.

We might here enumerate a great number of other fine
foreign oaks; among which the most interesting are the
Holly or Holm oak (Quercus Ilex); and the Cork oak
(Q. Suber), of the south of France, which produces the
cork of commerce (both rather too tender for the north) ;
the Kermes oak (Q. coccifera), from which a scarlet dye

152 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

is obtained ; and the Italian Esculent oak (Q. Esculus),
with sweet nutritious acorns. Those, however, who
wish to investigate them, will pursue this subject further
in European works; while that splendid treatise on our
forest trees, the North American Sylva of Michaux, will
be found to give full and accurate descriptions of all our
numerous indigenous varieties, of which many are
peculiar to the southern states.

The oak flourishes best on a strong loamy soil, rather
moist than dry. Here at least the growth is most rapid,
although, for timber, the wood is generally not so sound
on a moist soil as a dry one, and the tree goes to decay
more rapidly. Among the American kinds, however,
some may be found adapted to every soil and situation,
though those species which grow on upland soils, in
stony, clayey, or loamy bottoms, attain the greatest size
and longevity. When immense trees are desired, the oak
should either be transplanted very young, or, which is
preferable, raised from the acorn sown where it is finally
toremain. This is necessary on account of the very
large tap roots of this genus of trees, which are either
entirely destroyed or greatly injured by removal. Trans-
planting this genus of trees should be performed either
early in autumn, as soon as the leaves fall or become
brown,,or in spring before the abundant rains commence.

Tue Evm. Ulmus.

Nat. Ord. Ulmacee. Lin. Syst. Pentandria, Digynia.

We have ascribed te the oak the character of pre-

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 153

eminent dignity and majesty among the trees of the forest.
Let us now claim for the elm the epithets graceful and
elegant. This tree is one of the noblest in the size of its
trunk, while the branches are comparatively tapering and
slender, forming themselves, in most of the species, into
long and graceful curves. The flowers are of a chocolate
or purple color, and appear in the month of April, before
the leaves. The latter are light and airy, of a pleasing
light green in the spring, growing darker, however, as the
season advances. The elm is one of the most common
trees in both continents, and has been well known for its
beauty and usefulness since a remote period. In the
south of Europe, particularly in Lombardy, elm trees are
planted in vineyards, and the vines are trained in festoons
from tree to tree in the most picturesque manner. Tasso
alludes to this in the following stanza:

“Come olmo, a cui la pampinosa pianta
Cupida s’avvitiechi e si marite ;
Se ferro il tronea, o fulmine lo schianta
Trae seco a terra la compagna vite.”
Gerusalemme Liberata, 2. 326.

It is one of the most common trees for public walks
and avenues, along the highways in France and Germany,
growing with great rapidity, and soon forming a widely
extended shade. In Europe, the elm is much used for
keels in ship-building, and is remarkably durable in water ;
more extensive use is made of it there than of the
American kinds in this country, though the wood of the
Red American elm is more valuable than any other in
the United States for the blocks used in ship rigging.

For its graceful beauty the elm is entitled to high

154 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

regard. Standing alone as a single tree, or in a group
of at most three or four in number, it developes itself in
all its perfection. The White American elm we consider
the most beautiful of the family, and to this we more
particularly allude. In such situations as we have just
mentioned, this tree developes its fine ample form in the
most perfect manner. Its branches first spring up em-
bracing the centre, then bend off in finely diverging lines,
until in old trees they often sweep the ground with their
loose pendent foliage. With all this lightness and peculiar
gracefulness of form, it is by no means a meagre looking
tree in the body of its foliage, as its thick tufted masses
of leaves reflect the sun and embosom the shadows as
finely as almost any other tree, the oak excepted. We
consider it peculiarly adapted for planting, in scenes
where the expression of elegant or classical beauty is
desired. In autumn the foliage assumes a lively yellow
tint, contrasting well with the richer and more glowing
colors of our native woods. Even in winter it is a
pleasing object, from the minute division of its spray and
the graceful droop of its branches. It is one of the most
generally esteemed of our native trees for ornamental
purposes, and is as great a favorite here as in Europe for
planting in public squares and along the highways.
Beautiful specimens may be seen in Cambridge, Mass.,
and very fine avenues of this tree are growing with great
luxuriance in and about New Haven.* The charming
villages of New England, among which Northampton
and Springfield are pre-eminent, borrow from the superb
and wonderfully luxuriant elms which decorate their fine

* The great elm of Boston Common is 22 feet in circumference.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 155

streets and avenues, the greater portion of their peculiar
loveliness. The elm should not be chosen where large
groups and masses are required, as the similarity of its
form in different individuals might then create a mo-
notony ; but as we have before observed, it is peculiarly
well calculated for small groups, or as a single object.
The roughness of the bark, contrasting with the lightness
of its foliage and the easy sweep of its branches, adds
much also to its effect as a whole.

We shall briefly describe the principal species of the

elm.

The American White elm. (Ulmus Americana.) This
is the best known and most generally distributed of our
native species, growing in greater or less profusion over
the whole of the country included between Lower Canada
and the Gulf of Mexico. It often reaches 80 feet in
height in fine soils, with a diameter of 4 or 5 feet. The
leaves are alternate, 3 or 4 inches long, unequal in size
at the base, borne on petioles half an inch to an inch in
length, oval, acuminate, and doubly denticulated. The
seeds are contained in a flat, oval, winged seed-vessel,
fringed with small hairs on the margin. The flowers,
of a dull purple color, are borne in small bunches on
short footstalks at the end of the branches, and appear
very early in the spring. This tree prefers a deep rich
soil, and grows with greater luxuriance if it be rather
moist, often reaching in such situations an altitude of
nearly 100 feet. It is found in the greatest perfection in
the alluvial soils of the fertile valleys of the Connecticut,
the Mississippi, and the Ohio rivers.

The Red or Slippery elm. (U. fulva.) A tree of

156 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

lower size than the White elm, attaining generally only
40 or 50 feet. According to Michaux, it may be
distinguished from the latter even in winter, by its buds,
which are larger and rounder, and which are covered a
fortnight before their development with a russet down.
The leaves are larger, rougher, and thicker than those
of the White elm; the seed-vessels larger, destitute of
fringe ; the stamens short, and of a pale rose color. This
tree bears a strong likeness to the Dutch elm, and the
bark abounds in mucilage, whence the name of Slippery
elm. The branches are less drooping than those of the
White elm. ,

The Wahoo elm (U. alata) is not found north of
Virginia. It may at once be known in every stage of
its growth by the fungous cork-like substance which
lines the branches on both sides. It is a very singular
and curious tree, of moderate stature, and grows rapidly
and well when cultivated in the northern states.

The common European elm. (U. campestris.) This
is the most commonly cultivated forest tree in Europe,
next to the oak. It is a more upright growing tree than
the White elm, though resembling it in the easy
disposition and delicacy of its branches. . The flowers,
of a purple color, are produced in round bunches close
to the stem. The leaves are rough, doubly serrated,
and much more finely cut than those of our elms. It
is a fine tree, 60 or 70 feet high, growing with rapidity,
and is easily cultivated. The timber is more valuable
than the American sort, though the tree is inferior to
the White elm in beauty. There are some dozen or
more fine varieties of this species cultivated in the

English nurseries, among which the most remarkable are

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. F 157

the Twisted elm (U. c. tortuosa), the trunk of which is
singularly marked with hollows and protuberances, and
the grain of the wood curiously twisted together: the
Kidbrook elm (U. c. virens), which is a sub-evergreen :
the Gold and Silver striped elms, with variegated leaves,
and the Narrow-leaved elm (U. c. viminalis), which
resembles the birch: the Cork-barked elm (U. c. suberosa),
the young branches of which are covered with cork, ete.

The latter is one of the hardiest and most vigorous
of all ornamental trees in this climate. It thrives in
almost every soil, and its rich, dark foliage, which hangs
late in autumn, and its somewhat picturesque form,
should recommend it to every planter.

The Scotch or Wych elm. (U. montana.) This isa
tree of lower stature than the common European elm,
its average height being about 40 feet. The leaves are
broad, rough, pointed, and the branches extend more
horizontally, drooping at the extremities. The bark on
the branches is comparatively smooth. It is a grand tree,
“the head is so finely massed and yet so well broken as
to render it one of the noblest of park trees; and when’
it grows wild amid the rocky scenery of its native
Scotland, there is no tree which assumes so great or so
pleasing a variety of character.”* In general appearance,
the Scotch elm considerably resembles our White elm,
and it is a very rapid grower. Its most ornamental
varieties are the Spiry-topped elm (U. m. fastigiata),
with singularly twisted leaves, and a very upright growth:
the weeping Scotch elm (U. m. pendula), a very
remarkable variety, the branches of which droop in a

* Sir Thos. Lauder, in Gilpin, 1. 91.

158 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

fan-like manner: and the Smooth-leaved Scotch elm (U.
m. glabra). .

There is scarcely any soil to which some of the
different elms are not adapted. The European species
prefer a deep, dry soil; the Scotch or Wych elm will
thrive well even in very rocky places; and the White
elm grows readily in all soils, but most luxuriantly in
moist places. All the species attain their maximum size
when planted in a deep loam, rather moist than dry.
They bear transplanting remarkably well, suffering but
little even from the mistaken practice of those persons
who reduce them in transplanting to the condition of
bare poles, as they shoot out a new crop of branches,
and soon become beautiful young trees in spite of the
mal-treatment. As the elm scarcely produces a tap
root, even large trees may be removed, when the
operation is skilfully performed. In such cases, the
recently-removed tree should be carefully and plentifully
supplied with water until it is well established in its
new situation. The elm is also easily propagated by
seed, layers, or, In some species, by suckers from the

root.

Tue Puane or Butronwoop Trer. Platanus.

Nat. Ord. Platanacee. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

The plane, Platanus, derives its name from adasug,
broad, on account of the broad, umbrageous nature of its
branches. It is a well known tree of the very largest

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 159

size, common to both hemispheres, and greatly prized
for the fine shade- afforded by its spreading head, in
the warmer parts of Europe and Asia. No tree was in
greater esteem with the ancients for this purpose ; and
we are told that the Academic groves, the neighborhood
of the public schools, and all those favorite avenues where
the Grecian philosophers were accustomed to resort, were
planted with these trees; and beneath their shade
Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, delivered the choicest
wisdom and eloquence of those classic days. The
Eastern plane (Platanus orientalis) was first brought
to the Roman provinces from Persia, and so highly was
it esteemed that according to Pliny, the Morini paid a
tribute to Rome for the privilege of enjoying its shade.
To that author we are also indebted for the history of the
great plane tree that grew in the province of Lycia,
which was of so huge a size, that the governor of the
province, Licinius Mutianus, together with eighteen of
his retinue, feasted in the hollow of its trunk.

In the United States, the plane is not generally found
growing in great quantities in any one place, but is more
or less scattered over the whole country. In deep, moist,
alluvial soils, it attains a size scarcely, if at all, inferior to
that of the huge trees of the eastern continent; forming
at least, in the body of its trunk, a larger circumference
than any other of our native trees. The younger
Michaux (Sylva, 1, 825) measured a tree near Marietta,
Ohio, which at four feet from the ground was found to be
forty-seven feet in circumference; and a specimen has’
lately been cut on the banks of the Genesee river, of such
enormous size, that a section of the trunk was hollowed

out and furnished as a small room, capable of containing

160 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

fourteen persons.* On the margins of the great western
rivers it sometimes rises up seventy feet, and then expands
into a fine, lofty head, surpassing in grandeur all its
neighbors of the forest. The large branches of the plane
shoot out in a horizontal direction; the trunk generally
ascending in a regular, stately, and uninterrupted manner.
The blossoms are small greénish balls appearing in spring,
and the fertile ones grow to an inch in diameter, assuming
a deep brownish color, and hang upon the tree during the
whole winter. A striking and peculiar characteristic of
the plane, is its property of throwing off or shedding
continually the other coating of bark here and there in
patches. Professor Lindley (Introduction to the Natural
System, 2d ed. 187) says this is owing to its deficiency
in the expansive power of the fibre common to the bark
of other trees, or, in other words, to the rigidity of its
tissue: being therefore incapable of stretching with the
growth of the tree, it bursts open on different parts of the
trunk, and is cast off. This gives the trunk quite a lively
and picturesque look, extending more or less even to the
extremity of the branches; and makes this tree quite
conspicuous in winter. Bryant, in his address to Green
River, says :
“Clear are the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,

And the plane tree’s speckled arms o’ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root.”

The great merit of the plane, or buttonwood, is its

* A buttonwood on the Montezuma estate, Jefferson, Cayuga Co., N. Y.,
is forty-seven and a half feet in circumference; and the diameter of the
hollow two feet from the ground, is fifteen fect. (NV. Y. Med. Repository,
IV. 427.)

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 161

extreme vigor and luxuriance of growth. In a good soil it
will readily reach a height of thirty-five or forty feet in ten
years. It is easily transplanted; and in new residences,
bare of trees, where an effect is desired speedily, we know
of nothing better adapted quickly to produce abundance
of foliage, shelter, and shade. When the requisite foliage
is obtained, and other trees of slower growth have reached
a proper size, the former may be thinned out. As the
plane tree grows to the largest size, it is only proper for
situations where there is considerable ground, and where
it can without inconvenience to its fellows have ample
room for its full development. Then soaring up, and
extending its wide-spread branches on every side, it is
certainly a very majestic tree. The color of the foliage
is of a paler green than is usual in forest trees; and
although of large size, is easily wafted to and fro by the
wind, thereby producing an agreeable diversity of light
pleasing to the eye in summer. In winter the branches
are beautifully hung, even to their furthest ends, with the
numerous round russet-balls, or seed-vessels, each sus-
pended by a slender cord, and swinging about in the air.
The outline of the head is pleasingly irregular, and its
foliage against a sky outline is bold and picturesque. It
is not a tree to be planted in thick groves by itself, but
to stand alone and detached, or in a group with two or
three. In avenues it is often happily employed, and
produces a grand effect. It also grows with great vigor
in close cities, as some superb specimens in the square
of the State-house, Pennsylvania Hospital, and other
places in Philadelphia fully attest.

There is but a trifling difference in general effect between
: 11

162 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

our plane or buttonwood and the Oriental plane. For the
purposes of shade and shelter, the American is the finest,
as its foliage is the longest and broadest. The Oriental
plane (Platanus orientalis) has the leaves lobed like our
native kind (P. occidentalis), but the segments are much
more deeply cut; the footstalks of its leaves are green,
while those of the American are of a reddish hue, and the
fruit or ball is much smaller and rougher on the outer sur-
face when fully grown. Both species are common in the
nurseries, and are worthy the attention of the planter ; the
Oriental, as well for the interesting associations connected
with it, being the favorite shade-tree of the east, etc., as for
its intrinsic merits as a lofty and majestic tree.

Two of the varieties of P. occidentalis are sometimes cul-
tivated, the chief of which is the Maple-leaved plane (P. O.

acerifolia).

Tue Asn Tree. Frazinus.
Nat. Ord. Oleacee. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Dicecia.

The name of the ash, one of the finest and most useful
of forest trees, is probably derived from the Celtic ase,
a pike—as its wood was formerly in common use for
spears and other weapons. Homer informs us that Achilles
was slain with an ashen spear. In modern times the wood
is in universal use for the various implements of husbandry,
for the different purposes of the wheelwright and carriage-
maker, and in short for all purposes where great strength
and elasticity are required ; for in these qualities the ash is

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 163

second to no tree in the forest, the hickory alone excepted.
The ash is a large and lofty tree, growing, when surrounded
by other trees, sixty or seventy feet high, and three or more
in diameter. When exposed on all sides it forms a beau-
tiful, round, compact head of loose, pinnated, light green
foliage, and is one of the most vigorous growers among the
hard-wooded trees. The American species of ash are
found in the greatest luxuriance and beauty on the banks
and margins of rivers where the soil is partially dry, yet
where the roots can easily penetrate down to the moisture.
The European ash is remarkable for its hardy nature, being
often found in great vigor on steep rocky hills, and amid
crevices where most other trees flourish badly. Southey
alludes to this in the following lines :—

“ Grey as the®tone to which it clung, half root,
Half trunk, the young ash rises from the rock.”

As the ash grows strongly, and the roots, which extend
to a great distance, ramify near the surface, it exhausts the
soil underneath and around it to an astonishing degree.
For this reason the grass is generally seen in a very meagre
and starved condition in a lawn where the ash tree abounds.
Here and there a single tree of the ash will have an excel-
lent effect, seen from the windows of the house ; but we
would chiefly employ it for the grand masses, and to inter-
mingle with other large groups of trees in an extensive
plantation. When the ash is young it forms a well rounded
head; but when older the lower branches bend towards
the ground, and then slightly turn up in a very graceful
manner. We take pleasure in quoting what that great
lover and accurate delineator of forest beauties, Mr. Gilpin,
says of the ash. “The ash generally carries its principal

164 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

stem higher than the oak, and rises in an easy flowing line.
But its chief beauty consists in the lightness of its whole
appearance. Its branches at first keep close to the trunk
and form acute angles with it; but as they begin to lengthen
they generally take an easy sweep, and the looseness of the
leaves corresponding with the lightness of the spray, the
whole forms an elegant depending foliage. Nothing can
have a better effect than an old ash hanging from the corner
of a wood, and bringing off the heaviness of the other
foliage with its loose pendent branches.”—(Forest Scenery, '
p. 82.)

The highest and most characteristic beauty of the Ame-
rican White ash (and we consider it the finest of all the
species) is the coloring which its leaves put on in avtumn.
Gilpin complains that the leaf of the European ash “decays
in a dark, muddy, unpleasing tint.” Not so the White ash.
In an American wood, such as often lines and overhangs
the banks of the Hudson, the Connecticut, and many of
our noble northern streams, the ash assumes peculiar beauty
in autumn, when it can often be distinguished from the
surrounding trees for four or five miles, by the peculiar and
beautiful deep brownish purple of its fine mass of foliage.
This color, though not lively, is so full and rich as to pro-
duce the most pleasing harmony with the bright yellows
and reds of the other deciduous trees, and the deep green
of the pines and cedars.

The ash, unlike the elm, starts into vegetation late in the
spring, which is an objection to planting it in the immediate
vicinity of the house. In winter the long greyish white or
ash-colored branches are pleasing in tint, compared with

those of other deciduous trees. ‘

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 165

The White ash. (Fraxinus Americana) This species,
according to Michaux, is common to the colder parts of the
Union, and is most abundant north of the Hudson. It
owes its name to the light color of the bark, which on large
stocks is deeply furrowed, and divided into squares of one
to three inches in diameter. The trunk is perfectly straight,
and in close woods is often undivided to the height of more
than 40 feet. The leaves are composed of three or four
pairs of leaflets, terminated by an odd one; the whole
twelve or fourteen inches long. Early in spring they are
covered with a light down which disappears as summer
advances, when they become quite smooth, of a light green
color above and whitish beneath. The foliage, as well as
the timber of our White ash, is finer than that of the com-
mon European ash, and the tree is much prized in France
and Germany.

The Black ash (F. sambucifolia), sometimes called the
Water ash, requires a moist soil to thrive well, and is seen
in the greatest perfection on the borders of swamps. Its
buds are of a deep blue ; the young shoots of a bright green,
sprinkled with dots of the same color, which disappear as
the season advances. It may readily be distinguished from
the White ash by its bark, which is of a duller hue and less
deeply furrowed. The Black ash is altogether a tree of
less stature than the preceding.

The other native sorts are the Red ash (F. tomentosa),
with the bark of a deep brown tint, found in Pennsylvania :
the Green ash (fF. viridis), which also grows in Pennsyl-
vania, and is remarkable for the brilliant green of both sides
of the leaves: the Blue ash (f. Quadrangulata), a beauti-
ful tree of Kentucky, 70 feet high, distinguished by the four
opposite membranes of a greenish color, found on the young

166 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

shoots: and the Carolina ash (Ff. platycarpa), a small tree,
the leaves of which are covered with a thick down in
spring.

The common European ash (£. excelsior) strongly re-
sembles the White ash. It may, however, easily be known
by its very black buds, and longer, more serrated leaflets,
which are sessile, instead of being furnished with petioles
like the White ash. This fine tree, as well as the White
ash, grows to 80 or 90 feet in height, with a very handsome
head.

The Weeping ash, Fig. 36, is a very remarkable variety

of the European ash, with pendulous or weeping branches ;
and is worthy a place in every lawn for its curious ramifi-
cation, as well as for its general beauty. It is generally
propagated by grafting on any common stock, as the White
ash, 7 or 8 feet high, when the branches immediately begin
to turn down in a very striking and peculiar manner. The

droop of the branches is hardly a graceful one, yet it is so

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 167

unique, either when leafless, or in full foliage, that it has
long been one of our greatest favorites.

The Flowering ash (Fraxinus Ornus*) is a small tree of
about 20 feet, growing plentifully in the south of Europe,
and is also found sparingly in this country. Its chief beauty
lies in the beautiful clusters of pale or greenish-white flow-
ers, borne on the terminal branches in May and June. The
foliage and general appearance of the tree are much like
those of the common ash; but when in blossom it resembles
a good deal the Carolina Fringe tree. In Italy a gummy
substance called manna exudes from the bark, which is
used in medicine.

Tue Lime or Linpen Tree. Tilia.
Nat. Ord. Tilacez. Lin. Syst. Polyandria, Monogynia.

This tree, or rather the American sort, is well known
among us by the name of basswood. It is a rapidly grow-
ing, handsome, upright, and regularly shaped tree ; and all
the species are much esteemed, both in Europe and this
country, for planting in avenues and straight lines, wherever
the taste is in favor of geometric plantations. In Germany
and Holland it is a great favorite for bordering their wide
and handsome streets, and lining their long and straight
canals. “In Berlin,” Granville says in his travels, “ there
is a celebrated street called ‘unter der Linden,’ (under the
lime trees,) a gay and splendid avenue, planted with double

* Ornus Europeus of Persoon, and the European botanists. Beck remarks
that the American kind is so little known, that it is difficult to determine
whether it is a different species or only a mere variety of the European.

168 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

rows of this tree, which presented to my view a scene far
more beautiful than I had hitherto witnessed in any town,
either in France, Flanders, or Germany.” In this country
the European lime is also much planted in our cities ; and
some avenues of it may be seen in Philadelphia, particu-
larly before the State-house in Chestnut-street. The bass-
wood is a very abundant tree in some parts of the middle
states, and is seen growing in great profusion, forming thick
waods by itself in the interior of this state. With us the
wood is considered too soft to be of much value, but in
England it was formerly in high repute as an excellent
material for the use of carvers. Some very beautiful
specimens of old carving in lime wood may be seen in
Windsor Castle and Trinity College.* The Russian bass
mats, which find their way to every commercial country,
are prepared from the inner bark of this tree. The sap
affords a sugar like the maple, although in less quantities ;
and it is stated in the Encyclopedia of Plants (p. 467) “ that
the honey made from the flowers of the lime tree is reckoned
the finest in the world. Near Knowno, in Lithuania, there
are large forests chiefly of this tree, and probably a distinct
variety. The honey produced in these forests sells at more
than double the price of any other, and is used extensively

in medicine and for liqueurs.”

* Thé art of carving in wood, brought to such perfection by Gibbons, is now,
we believe, much given up; therefore the lime has lost a most important branch
of its usefulness. Perhaps the finest specimens of the works of Gibbons are to
be seen at Chatsworth, the seat of the Duke of Devonshire, in Derbyshire. The
execution of the flowers, fish, game, nets, etc., on the panelling of the walls is
quite wonderful. It was of him that Walpole justly said, ‘ that he was the first
artist who gave to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, and chained
together the various productions of the elements, with a free disorder natural to
each species.’ The lime tree is still, however, used by the carver, and we hope
that the art of wood carving may gradually be restored.”—Sir T. D. Lauder.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 169

The leaves of the lime are large and handsome, heart-
shaped in form, and pleasing in color. The flowers, which
open in June, hang in loose, pale yellow cymes or clusters,

are quite ornamental and very fragrant.

Sometimes

A scent of violets and blossoming limes
Loitered around us; then of honey cells,
Made delicate from all white flower bells.

Keats.

It was a favorite tree in the ancient style of gardening,
as it bore the shears well, and was readily clipt into all
manner of curious and fantastic shapes. When planted
singly on a lawn, and allowed to develope itself fully on
every side, the linden is one of the most beautiful of trees.
Its head then forms a fine pyramid of verdure, while its
lower branches sweep the ground and curve upwards in the
most pleasing form. For this reason, though the linden is
not a picturesque tree, it is very happily adapted for the
graceful landscape, as its whole contour is full, flowing, and
agreeable. The pleasant odor of its flowers is an addi-
tional recommendation, as well as its free growth and
handsome leaves. Were it not that of late it is so liable to
insects, we could hardly say too much in its praise as a fine
ornament for streets and public parks. There, its regular
form corresponds well with the formality of the architecture;
its shade affords cool and pleasant walks, and the delightful
odor of its blossoms is doubly grateful in the confined air
of the city. Our basswood has rather less of uniformity in
its outline than the European lindens, but the general form
is the same.

The American lime, or basswood (Tilia Americana), is

the most robust tree of the genus, and produces much

170 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

more vigorous shoots than the European species. It
prefers a deep and fertile soil, where the trunk grows
remarkably straight, and the branches form a handsome,
well-rounded summit. The flowers are borne on long
stalks, and are pendulous from the branches. The leaves
are large, heart-shaped, finely cut on the margin, and
terminated by a point at the extremity. The seeds,
which ripen in autumn, are like small peas, round and
greyish.

The white lime (T. alba) is rare in the eastern states,
but common in Pennsylvania and the states south of it.
It is not a tree of the largest size, but its flowers are the
finest of our native sorts. The leaves are also very large,
deep green on the upper surface, and white below; they
are more obliquely heart-shaped than those of the common
basswood. The young branches are covered with a
smooth silvery bark. This species is very common on
the Susquehannah river. .

The Downy lime tree. (T. pubescens.) The under
side of the leaves, and the fruits of this species, are, as its
name denotes, covered with a short down. Its flowers
are nearly white; the serratures of the leaves wider
apart, and the base of the leaf obliquely truncated. It is
a handsome large tree, a native of Florida, though hardy
enough, as experience proves, to bear our northern
winters.

The European lime (7. Huropea) is distinguished
from the American sorts, by its smaller and more
regularly cordate and rounded leaves. Unlike our
native species, the flowers are not furnished with inner
scale-like petals. The foliage is rather deeper in hue
than the native sorts, and the branches of the head rather

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 171

more regular in form and disposition. There are two
pretty varieties of the English lime which are well known
in this country, viz. the Red-barked, or corallina (var.
rubra), with red branches; and the Golden-barked (var.
aurea), with handsome yellow branches. These trees
are peculiarly beautiful in winter, when a few of them
mingled with other deciduous trees make a_ pleasing
variety of coloring in the absence of foliage. The broad-
leaved European lime is the finest for shade and
ornament. The whitish foliage of Tilia alba, which
probably is also a variety, has a beautiful appearance,
somewhat like the Abele tree, in a gentle breeze.

These trees grow well on any good friable soil, and
readily endure transplantation. They bear trimming
remarkably well; and when but little root is obtained the
head may be shortened in proportion, and the tree will
soon make vigorous shoots again. All the species are
easily increased by layers.

: Tue Beecu Tree. Fagus.
Nat. Ord. Corylacee. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

The Beech is a large, compact, and lofty tree, with a
greyish bark and finely divided spray, and is a common
inhabitant of the forest in all temperate climates. In the
United States, this tree is generally found congregated in
very great quantities, wherever the soil is most favorable ;
hundreds of acres being sometimes covered with this

single kind of timber. Such tracts are familiarly known

72 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

as “beech woods.” The leaves of the beech are
remarkably thin in texture, glazed and shining on the
upper surface, and so thickly set upon the numerous
branches, that it forms the darkest. and densest shade of
any of our deciduous forest trees. It appears to have
been highly valued by the ancients as a shade tree; and

Virgil says in its praise, in a well-known Eclogue:

“ Tityre, tu patule recubans sub tegmine fagi,
Sylvestrem tenui musam meditaris avena.”

It bears a small compressed nut or mast, oily and sweet,
which once was much valued as an article of food. The
most useful purpose to which we have heard of their being
applied, is in the manufacture of an oil, scarcely inferior
to olive oil. This is produced from the mast of the beech
forests in the department of Oise, France, in immense
quantities; more than a million of sacks of the nuts
having been collected in that department in a single
season. They are reduced, when perfectly ripe, to a fine
paste, and the oil is extracted by gradual pressure. The
product of oil, compared with the crushed nuts, is about
sixteen per cent. (Michaux, N. American Sylva.)

In Europe, the wood of the beech is much used in the
manufacture of various utensils; but here, where our
forests abound in woods vastly superior in strength.
durability, and firmness, that of the beech is comparatively
little esteemed.

For ornamental purposes, the beech, from its compara-
tively slow growth, and its abundance in various parts of
the country, does not command the admiration here which
it does in Europe. Campbell, the poet, has produced so
eloquent and beautiful an appeal in favor of an old denizen

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 173

of the forest, entitled the “Beech Tree’s Petition,” that
we gladly quote it, hoping it may perchance stay the
hand of some soi-disant improver, who would despoil our

native woods of their proudest glories :

“Oh, leave this barren spot to me!
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Though bush or floweret never grow
My dark, unwarming shade below;
Nor summer bud perfume the dew
Of rosy blush or yellow hue!
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born,
My green and glossy leaves adorn ;
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive
Th’ ambrosial amber of the hive ;
Yet leave this barren spot to me—
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!

Thrice twenty summers I have seen
The sky grow bright, the forest green ;
And many a wintry wind have stood
In bloomless, fruitless solitude,

Since childhood in my pleasant bower
First spent its sweet and sportive hour ;
Since youthful lovers in my shade
Their vows of truth and rapture made ;
And on my trunk’s surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name.
Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound

First breathed upon this sacred ground,
By all that Love has whispered here,
Or beauty heard with ravished ear ;

As Love’s own altar, honor me—
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!”

The beech is quite handsome and graceful when young,
and when, large it forms one of the heaviest and grandest
of beautiful park trees. From this massy quality, how-
ever, it is excellently adapted to mingle with other trees
when a thick and impenetrable mass of foliage is desired :

174 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and, on account of its density, it is also well suited to shut
out unsightly buildings, or other objects.

The leaves of many beech trees hang on the tree, in a
dry and withered state, during the whole winter. This is
chiefly the case with young trees; but we consider it as
greatly diminishing its beauty at that season, as the tree is
otherwise very pleasing to the eye, with its smooth, round,
grey stem, and small twisted spray. A deciduous tree, we
think, should as certainly drop its leaves at the approach
of cold weather, as an evergreen should retain them ; more
especially if its leaves have a dead and withered appearance,
as is the case with those of the beech in this climate.

The White beech (Fagus Sylvatica) is the common
beech tree of the middle and western states. It is found in
the greatest perfection in a cool situation and a moist soil.
The bark is smooth and grey, even upon the oldest stocks.
The leaves oval, smooth, and shining, coarsely cut on the
edges, and margined with a soft down in the spring.

The Red beech (F. ferruginea), so called on account of
the color of its wood, loves a still colder climate than the
other, and is found in the greatest perfection in British
America. The leaves are divided into coarser teeth on
the margin than the foregoing species. The nuts are much
smailer, and the whole tree forms a lower and more spread-
ing head.

The European beech (Ff. sylvatica) is thought by many
botanists to be the same species as our white beech, or at
most only a variety. Its average height in Europe is
about fifty feet ; the buds are shorter, and the leaves not so
coarsely toothed as our native sorts. The Purple beech is

avery ornamental variety of the European beech, common

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 175

in the gardens. Both surfaces of the leaves, and even the
young shoots, are deep purple ; and although the growth is
slow, yet it is in every stage of its progress, and more par-
ticularly when it reaches a good size, one of the strangest
anomalies among trees, in the hue of its foliage. There is
also a variety called the copper-colored beech, with paler
purple leaves ;* and a more rare English variety (/". s. pen-
dula), the Weeping beech, with graceful pendent branches.

Tue Hornseam (Carpinus Americana), and the Iron-
woop (Ostrya Virginica), are both well known small trees,
belonging to the same natural family as the beech. They
are of little value in ornamental plantations ; but from their
thick foliage, they might perhaps be employed to advantage
in making thick verdant screens for shelter or concealment.

Tue Portar Tree. Populus.
Nat. Ord. Salicacex. Lin. Syst. Dicecia, Octandria.

Arbor Populi, or the people’s tree, was the name given
in the ancient days of Rome to this tree, as being peculiarly
appropriated to those public places most frequented by the
people: some ingenious authors have still further justified
the propriety of the name, by adding, that its trembling
leaves are like the populace, always in motion.

The poplars are light-wooded, rapid-growing trees ; many

* The finest Copper Beech in America is growing in the grounds of Thomas
Ash, Esq., Throgs Neck, Westchester Co., N. Y. It is more than fifty feet
high, with a broad and finely formed head,

176 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of them of huge size, and all with pointed, heart-shaped
leaves. The tassel-like catkins, or male blossoms, of a red
or brownish hue, appear early in the spring. Some of the
American kinds, as the Balsam and Balm of Gilead poplars,
have their buds enveloped in a fragrant gum; others, as
the Silver poplar, or Abele, are remarkable for the snowy
whiteness of the under side of the foliage ; and the Lom-

bardy poplar, which

«« Shoots up its spire, and shakes its leaves in the sun,”

Proctor.

for its remarkably conical or spire-like manner of growth.
The leaves of all the species, beimg suspended upon long
and slender footstalks, are easily put in motion by the wind.
This, however, is peculiarly the case with the aspen, the
leaves of which may often be seen trembling in the slightest
breeze, when the foliage of the surrounding trees is motion-
less. There is a popular legend in Scotland respecting

this tree, which runs thus:

“Far offin the Highland wilds ’tis said
(But truth now laughs at fancy’s lore),
That of this tree the cross was made,
Which erst the Lord of Glory bore ;
And of that deed its leaves confess,
Her since, a troubled consciousness.”

In Landscape Gardening the poplar is net highly esteemed ;
but it is a valuable tree when judiciously employed, and
produces a given quantity of foliage and shade sooner
perhaps than any otker. Some of the American kinds are
majestic and superb trees when old, particularly the Cotton-
wood and Balsam poplars.* One of the handsomest sorts

* There is a noble specimen of the Cottonwood, or, as it is here called, the

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 17

is the Silver poplar, which is much valued in our orna-
mental plantations; the more so, perhaps, because it is an

[Fig. 37. The Cottonwood.}

exotic. At some distance, the downy under surfaces of the
leaves, turned up by the wind, give it very much the aspect
of a tree covered with white blossoms. This effect is the
more striking, when it is situated in front of a group or

Balm of Gilead poplar, about two miles north of Newburgh, on the Hudson,
which gives its name to the small village (Balmville) near it. The branches
cover a surface of one hundred fect in diameter, the trunk girths twenty feet,
and the branches stretch over the public road in a most majestic manner. (See
Fig. 37.)

178 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

mass of the darker foliage of other trees. It is valuable for
retaining its leaves in full beauty to the latest possible
period in the autumn, even when all the other deciduous
trees are either brown, or have entirely lost their leafy
honors. Its growth is extremely rapid, forming a fine
rounded head of thirty feet in height, in six or eight
years.

The Lombardy poplar is a beautiful tree, and in certain
situations produces a very elegant effect ; but it has been
planted so indiscriminately, in some parts of this country,
in close monotonous lines before the very doors of our
houses, and in many places in straight rows along the high-
ways for miles together, to the neglect of our fine native
trees, that it has been tiresome and disgusting. This tree
may, however, be employed with singular advantage in
giving life, spirit, and variety to a scene composed entirely
of round-headed trees, as the oak, ash, etc..—when a tall
poplar, emerging here and there from the back or centre
of the group, often imparts an air of elegance and animation
to the whole. It may, also, from its marked and striking
contrast to other trees, be employed to fix or direct the
attention to some particular point in the landscape. When
large poplars of this kind are growing near a house of but
moderate dimensions, they have a very bad effect by com-
pletely overpowering the building, without imparting any
of that grandeur of character conferred by an old oak, or
other spreading tree. It should be introduced but sparingly
i landscape composition, as the moment it is made com-
mon in any scene, it gives an air of sameness and formality,
and all the spirited effect is lost which its sparing introduc-
tion among other trees produces. The Lombardy poplar

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 179

is so well adapted to confined situations, as its branches
require less lateral room than those of almost any other
large deciduous tree.

It is an objection to some of the poplars, that in any
cultivated soil they produce an abundance of suckers.
For this reason they should be planted only in grass ground,
or in situations where the soil will not be disturbed, or
where the suckers will not be injurious. Indeed, we con-
ceive them to be chiefly worthy of introduction in grounds
of large extent, to give variety to plantations of other and
more valuable trees. They grow well in almost every soil,
moist or dry, and some species prefer quite wet and springy
places.

The chief American poplars are the Tachamahaca or
Balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera), chiefly found in
Northern America; a large tree, 80 feet high, with fragrant
gummy buds and lanceolate-oval leaves; the Balm of
Gilead poplar (P. candicans), resembling the foregoing in
its buds, but with very large, broad, heart-shaped foliage.
From these a gum is sometimes collected, and used medi-
cinally for the cure of scurvy. The American aspen (P.
tremuloides), about 30 feet high, a common tree with very
tremulous leaves and greenish bark ; the large American
aspen (P. grandidentaia), 40 feet high, with large leaves
bordered with coarse teeth or denticulations ; the Cotton
tree (P. argentea), 60 or 70 feet, with leaves downy in a
young state; the American Black poplar of smaller size,
having the young shoots covered with short hair; the
Cottonwood (P. Canadensis), found chiefly in the western
part of this state, a fine tree, with smooth, unequally-toothed,
wide cordate leaves ; and the Carolina poplar (P. angulata),

180 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

an enormous tree of the swamps of the south and west,
considerably resembling the Cotton tree, but without the
resinous buds of that species.

Among the European kinds, the most ornamental, as we
have already remarked, is the Silver aspen, White poplar, or
Abele tree (P. alba), which grows to a great size on a deep
loamy soil in a very short time. The leaves are divided
into lobes, and toothed on the margin, smooth and very
deep green above, and densely covered with a soft, close,
white down beneath. There are some varieties of this
species known abroad, with leaves more or less downy, etc.
Sir J. E. Smith remarks in his English Flora, that the wood,
though but little used, is much firmer than that of any other
British poplar; making as handsome floors as the best
Norway fir, with the additional advantage that they will
not readily take fire, like any resinous wood.

The English aspen (P. tremula) considerably resembles
our native aspen; but the buds are somewhat gummy.
The Athenian poplar (P. Greca) is a tree about 40 feet
high, with smaller, more rounded, and equally serrated
foliage. The common Black European poplar (P. nigra)
is also a large, rapidly growing tree, with pale-green leaves
slightly notched: the buds expand later than most other
poplars, and the young leaves are at first somewhat reddish
in color. The Necklace-bearing poplar (P. monilifera), so
called from the circumstance of the catkins being arranged
somewhat like beads in a necklace, is supposed to have
been derived from Canada, but there are some doubts
respecting its origin: in the south it is generally called the
Virginia poplar.

The Lombardy poplar (P. dilatata), a native of the banks
of the Po, where it is sometimes called the Cypress poplar,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 181

from its resembance to that tree, is too well known among
us to need any description. Only one sex, the female, has
hitherto been introduced into this country ; and it has con-
sequently produced no seeds here, but has been entirely
propagated by suckers from the root.

Tue Horse-cuestnut Tree. A’sculus.
Nat. Ord. sculacee. Lin. Syst. Heptandria, Monogynia.

A large, showy, much admired, ornamental tree, bearing
large leaves composed of seven leaflets, and, in the month
of May, beautiful clusters of white flowers, delicately mot-
tled with red and yellow. It is a native of Middle Asia,
but flourishes well in the temperate climates of both hemi-
spheres. It was introduced into England, probably from
Turkey, about the year 1575: in that country the nuts are
often ground into a coarse flour, which is mixed with other
food and given to horses that are broken-winded ; and from
this use the English name of the tree was derived.

A starch has been extracted in considerable quantity
from the nuts. The wood is considered valueless in the
United States.

The Horse-chestnut is by no means a picturesque tree,
being too regularly rounded in its outlines, and too compact
and close in its surface, to produce a spirited effect in light
and shade. But it is nevertheless one of the most beautiful
exotic trees which will bear the open air in this climate.
The leaves, each made of clusters of six or seven leaflets,
are of a fine dark-green color; the whole head of foliage

182 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

has much grandeur and richness in its depth of hue and
massiness of outline ; and the regular, rounded, pyramidal
shape, is something so different from that of most of our
indigenous trees, as to strike the spectator with an air of
novelty and distinctness. The great beauty of the Horse-
chestnut is the splendor of its inflorescence, surpassing that
of almost all our native forest trees: the huge clusters of
gay blossoms, which every spring are distributed with such
luxuriance and profusion over the surface of the foliage,
and at the extremity of the branches, give the whole tree
the aspect rather of some monstrous flowering shrub, than
of an ordinary tree of the largest size. At that season there
can be no more beautiful object to stand singly upon the
lawn, particularly if its branches are permitted to grow low
down the trunk, and (as they naturally will as the tree ad-
vances) sweep the green sward with their drooping foliage.
Like the lime tree, however, care must be taken, in the
modern style, to introduce it rather sparingly in picturesque
plantations, and then only as a single tree, or upon the
margin of large groups, masses, or plantations ; but it may
be more freely used in grounds in the graceful style, for
which it is highly suitable. When handsome avenues or
straight lines are wanted, the Horse-chestnut is again ad-
mirably suited, from its symmetry and regularity. It is,
therefore, much and justly valued for these purposes in our
towns and cities, where its deep shade and beauty of blos-
som are peculiarly desirable, the only objection to it being
the early fall of its leaves. The Horse-chestnut is very
interesting in its mode of growth. The large buds are
thickly covered in winter with a resinous gum, to protect
them from the cold and moisture ; in the spring these burst

open, and the whole growth of the young shoots, leaves,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 183

flowers, and all, is completed in about three or four weeks.
When the leaves first unfold, they are clothed with a
copious cotton-like down, which falls off when they have
attained their full size and development.

The growth of the Horse-chestnut is slow for a soft-
wooded tree, when the trees are young; after five or six
years, however, it advances with more rapidity, and in
twenty years forms a beautiful and massy tree. It prefers
a strong, rich, loamy soil, and is easily raised from the large
nuts, which are produced in great abundance.

There are several species of Horse-chestnut, but the
common one (A¢sculus Hippocastanum) is incomparably
the finest. The American sorts are the following: (4s-
culus Ohioensis,) or Ohio Buckeye, as it is called in the
western states; a small sized tree, with palmated leaves
consisting of five leaflets, and pretty, bright yellow flowers,
with red stamens. The fruit is about half the size of the
exotic species. The Red-flowered Horse-chestnut (A scu-
lus rubicunda) is a small tree with scarlet flowers ; and the
Smooth-leaved (4Z. glabra) has pale yellow flowers. All
the foregoing have prickly fruit. Besides these are two
small Horse-chestnuts with smooth fruit, which thence
properly belong to the genus Pavia, viz. the Yellow-flow-
ered Pavia (P. lutea) of Virginia and the southern states ;_
and the Red-flowered (P. rubra), with pretty clusters of
reddish flowers; both these have leaves resembling those
of the Horse-chestnut, except in being divided into five
leaflets, instead of seven. There are some other species,

which are, however, rather shrubs than trees.

184 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tue Biron Tree. Betula.

Nat. Ord. Betulacee. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

The Birch trees are common inhabitants of the forests
of all cold and elevated countries. They are remarkable
for their smooth, silvery-white, or reddish colored stems,
delicate and pliant spray, and small, light foliage. There
is no deciduous tree which will endure a more rigorous
climate, or grow at a greater elevation above the level of
the sea. It is found growing in Greenland and Kams-
chatka, as far north as the 58th and 60th degree of
latitude, and on the Alps in Switzerland, according te
that learned botanist, M. DeCandolle, at the elevation of
4,400 feet. It is undoubtedly the most useful tree of
northern climates. Not only are cattle and sheep
sometimes fed upon the leaves, but the lLaplander
constructs his hut of the branches; the Russian forms
the bark into shoes, baskets, and cordage for harnessing
his reindeer; and the inhabitants of Northern Siberia, in
times of scarcity, grind it to mix with their oatmeal for
food. In this country the birch is no less useful. The
North American Indian, and all who are obliged to travel
the wild, unfrequented portions of British America,—
who have to pass over rapids, and make their way
through the wilderness from river to river,—find the
canoe made of the birch bark, the lightest, the most
durable, and convenient vessel, for these purposes, in the

world.*

* The following interesting description of their manufacture, we quote from
Michaux. “The most important purpose to which the Canoe birch is applied,
and one in which its place is supplied by no other tree, is the construction of

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 185

The wood of our Black birch is by far the finest ; and,
as it assumes a beautiful rosy color when polished, and is
next in texture to the wild Cherry tree, it is considerably
esteemed among cabinet-makers in the eastern states, for
chairs, tables, and bedsteads.

In Europe, the sap of the birch is collected in the
spring, in the same manner as that of the maple in this
country, boiled with sugar and hops, and fermented with
the aid of yeast. The product of the fermentation is
called birch wine, and is described as being a remarkably
pleasant and healthy beverage.

Though perhaps too common in some districts of our
country to be properly regarded as an ornamental tree,
yet in others where it is less so, the birch will doubtless
be esteemed as it deserves. With us it is a great favorite ;
and we regard it as a very elegant and graceful tree, not
less on account of the silvery white bark of several
species, than from the extreme delicacy of the spray, and
the pleasing lightness and airiness of the foliage. In all
the species, the branches have a tendency to form those
graceful curves which contribute so much to the beauty

canoes. To procure proper pieces, the largest and smoothest trunks are
selected ; in the spring, two circular incisions are made several feet apart, and
two longitudinal ones, on opposite sides of the tree: after which, by intro-
ducing a wedge, the bark is easily detached. These plates are usually ten or
twelve feet long, and two feet nine inches broad. To form canoes, they are
stitched together with fibrous roots of the white spruce, about the size of a
quill, which are deprived of the bark, split, and suppled in water. The seams
are coated with resin of the Balm of Gilead. Great use is made of these
canves by the savages, and the French Canadians, in their long journeys through
the interior of the country: they are light, and very easily transported on the
shoulders from one lake to another, which is called the portage. A canoe
caleulated for four persons, with their baggage, weighs from forty to fifty
pounds ; and some of them are made to carry fifteen passengers.”

186 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of trees; but the European weeping birch is peculiarly
pleasing as it grows old, on that account. It is this variety

which Coleridge pronounces,

«________Most beautiful
Of forest trees—the Lady of the woods.”

And Bernard Barton, speaking of our native species, says,

____-___« See the beautiful Birch tree fling
Its shade on the grass beneath—
Its glossy leaf, and its silvery stem ;
Dost thou not love to look on them ?”

The American sorts, and particularly the Black birch,
start into leaf very early in the spring, and their tender
green is agreeable to the eye at that season; while the
swelling buds and young foliage in many kinds, give out a
delicious, though faint perfume. Even the blossoms, which
hang like little brown tassels from the drooping branches,

are interesting to the lover of nature.

« The fragrant birch above him hung
Her taszels in the sky,
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.”

Bryant.

Nothing can well be prettier, seen from the windows of
the drawing-room, than a large group of trees, whose depth
and distance is made up by the heavy and deep masses of
the ash, oak, and maple ; and the portions nearest the eye or
the lawn terminated by a few birches, with their sparkling
white stems, and delicate, airy, drooping foliage. Our White
birch, being a small tree, is very handsome in such situa-

tions, and offers the most pleasing variety to the eye, when

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 187

seen in connexion with other foliage. Several kinds, as
the Yellow and the Black birches, are really stately trees,
and form fine groups by themselves. Indeed, most beauti-
ful and varied masses might be formed by collecting
together all the different kinds, with their characteristic
barks, branches, and foliage.

As an additional recommendation, many of these trees
grow on the thinnest and most indifferent soils, whether
moist or dry; and in cold, bleak, and exposed situations,
as well as in warm and sheltered places.

We shall enumerate the different kinds as follows :—

The Canoe birch, Boleau &@ Canot, of the French Cana-
dians (B. papyracea), sometimes also called the Paper birch,
is, according to Michaux, most common in the forests of the
eastern states, north of latitude 43°, and in the Canadas.
There it attains its largest size, sometimes seventy feet in
height, and three in diameter. Its branches are slender,
flexible, covered with a shining brown bark, dotted with
white ; and on trees of moderate size, the bark of the trunk
is of a brilliant white ; it is often used for roofing houses,
for the manufacture of baskets, boxes, etc., besides its most
important use for canoes, as already mentioned. The leaves,
borne on petioles four or five lines long, are of a middling
size, oval, unequally denticulated, smooth, and of a dark
green color.

The White birch (B. populifolia) is a tree of much
smaller size, generally from twenty to thirty-five feet in
height: it is found in New York and the other middle
states, as well as at the north. The trunk, like the fore-
going, is covered with silvery bark; the branches are
slender, and generally drooping when the tree attains con-
siderable size. The leaves are smooth on both surfaces,

188 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

heart-shaped at the base, very acuminate, and doubly and
irregularly toothed. The petioles are slightly twisted, and
the leaves are almost as tremulous as those of the aspen.
It is a beautiful small tree for ornamental plantations.

The common Black or Sweet birch. (B. lenta.) This
is the sort most generally known by the name of the birch,
and is widely diffused over the middle and southern states.
In color and appearance the bark much resembles that of
the cherry tree; on old trees, at the close of winter, it is
frequently detached in transverse portions, in the form of
hard ligneous plates six or eight inches broad. The leaves,
for a fortnight after their appearance, are covered with a
thick silvery down, which disappears soon after. They are
about two inches long, serrate, heart-shaped at the base,
acyminate at the summit, and of a pleasing tint and fine
texture. The wood is of excellent quality, and Michaux
recommends its introduction largely into the forests of the
north of Hurope.”

The Yellow birch (B. lutea) grows most plentifully in
Nova Scotia, Maine, and New Brunswick, on cool, rich
soils, where it is a tree of the largest size. It is remark-
able for the color and arrangement of its outer bark, which
is of a brilliant golden yellow, and is frequently seen divided
into fine strips rolled backwards at the end, but attached in
the middle. The leaves are about three and a half inches
long, two and a half broad, ovate, acuminate, and bordered
with sharp and irregular teeth. It is a beautiful tree, with
a trunk of nearly uniform diameter, straight, and destitute
of branches for thirty or forty feet.

The Red birch (B. rubra) belongs chiefly to the south,
being scarcely ever seen north of Virginia. It prefers the

moist soil of river banks, where it reaches a noble height.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 189

It takes its name from the cinnamon or reddish color of the
outer bark on the young trees ; when old it becomes rough,
furrowed, and greenish. The leaves are light green on the
upper surface, whitish beneath, very pointed at the end,
and terminated at the base in an acute angle. The twigs
are long, flexible, and pendulous ; and the limbs of a brown
color, spotted with white.

The European White birch. (B. alba.) This species,
the common birch tree of Europe, is intermediate in appear-
ance and qualities between our Canoe birch and White
birch. The latter it resembles in its foliage, the former in
its large size and the excellence of its wood. There isa
distinct variety of this, to which we have alluded, called
the Weeping birch (Var. pendula), which is very rapid in
its growth, and highly graceful in its form. From the great
beauty of our native species, this is perhaps the only Euro-
pean sort which it is very desirable to introduce into our

collections.

Tue Auper Tree. Alnus.
Nat. Ord. Betulacez. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Tetrandria.

The alder tree is a native of the whole of Europe, where
it grows to the altitude of from thirty to sixty feet. Our
common Black alder (A. glauca), and Hazel-leaved alder
(A. serrulata), are low shrubs of little value or interest.
This, however, is a neat tree, remarkable for its love of
moist situations, and thriving best in places even too wet
for the willows ; although it will also flourish on dry and
elevated soils. The leaves are roundish in form, wavy, and

190 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

serrated in their margins, and dark green in color. The
tree rapidly forms an agreeable pyramidal head of foliage,
when growing in damp situations. As it is a foreign tree
we shall quote from Gilpin its character in scenery. “The
alder,” says he, “loves a low, moist soil, and frequents the
banks of rivers, and will flourish in the poorest forest
swamps where nothing else will grow. It is perhaps the
most picturesque of any of the aquatic tribe, except the
weeping willow. He who would see the alder in perfection
must follow the banks of the Mole in Surrey, through the
sweet vales of Dorking and Mickleham, into the groves of
Esher. The Mole, indeed, is far from being a beautiful
river; it is a silent and sluggish stream, but what beauty
it has it owes greatly to the alder, which everywhere fringes
its meadows, and in many places forms very pleasing scenes.
It is always associated in our minds with river scenery,
both of that tranquil description most frequently to be met
with in the vales of England, and with that wider and more
stirring cast which is to be found amidst the deep glens and
ravines of Scotland; and nowhere is this tree found in
greater perfection than on the wild banks of the river Find-
horn and its tributary streams, where scenery of the most
romantic description everywhere prevails.’’*

Although the beauty of the alder is of a secondary kind,
it is worth occasional introduction into landscapes where
there is much water to be planted round, or low running
streams to cover with foliage. In these damp places, like
the willow, it grows very well from truncheons or large
limbs, stuck in the ground, which take root and become
trees speedily. There are two principal varieties, the

* Lauder’s Gilpin, i. p. 136.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. i191

common alder (A. glutinosa), and the cut-leaved alder
(A. glutinosa laciniata). The latter is much the hand-
somer tree, and is also the rarest in our nurseries.

Tue Marie Tree. Acer.
Nat. Ord. Aceracez. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Monecia.

The great esteem in which the maples are held in the
middle states, as ornamental trees, although they are by no
means uncommon in every piece of woods of any extent,
is a high proof of their superior merits for such purposes.
These consist in the rapidity of their growth, the beauty
of their form, the fine verdure of their foliage, and in some
sorts, the elegance of their blossoms. Among all the spe-
cies, both native and foreign, we consider the Scarlet-
flowering maple as decidedly the most ornamental species.
In the spring this tree bursts out in gay tufts of red blos-
soms, which enliven both its own branches and the sur-
rounding scene long before a leaf is seen on other deciduous
trees, and when the only other appearances of vegetation
are a few catkins of some willows or poplars swelling into
bloom. At that season of the year the Scarlet maple is
certainly the most beautiful tree of our forests. Besides
this, it grows well either in the very moist soil of swamps,
or the dry one of upland ridges, forms a fine clustering
head of foliage, and produces an ample and delightful shade ;
while it is also as little infected by insects of any description
as any other tree. The latter advantage, the Sugar maple

and our other varieties equally possess. As a handsome

192 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

spreading tree, perhaps the White maple deserves most
praise, its outline and surface being, in many cases, quite
picturesque. There is no quality, however, for which the
American maples are entitled to higher consideration as
desirable objects in scenery, than for the exquisite beauty
which their foliage assumes in autumn, as it fades and
gradually dies off. At the first approach of cold we can
just perceive a bright yellow stealing over the leaves, then
a deeper golden tint, then a few faint blushes, until at
length the whole mass of foliage becomes one blaze of

crimson or orange.

« Tints that the maple woods disclose
Like opening buds or fading rose,
Or various as those hues that dye
The clouds that deck a sunset sky.”

The contrast of coloring exhibited on many of our fine
river shores in a warm dry autumn, is perhaps superior to
anything of the kind in the world: and the leading and
most brilliant colors, viz. orange and scarlet, are pro-
duced by maples. Even in Europe, they are highly
valued for this autumnal appearance, so different from that
of most of the trees of the old world. Very beautiful
effects can be produced by planting the Scarlet and Sugar
maples in the near neighborhood of the ash, which, as we
have already noticed, assumes a fine brownish purple; of
the sycamore, which is yellow, and some of the oaks, which
remain green for a long time: if to these we add a few
evergreens, as the White pine and hemlock, to produce
depth, we shall have a kind of kaleidoscope ground, harmo-
nious and beautiful as the rainbow.

When the maple is planted to grow singly on the lawn,

or in small groups, it should never be trimmed up ten or

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 193

twenty feet high, a very common practice in some places,
as this destroys half its beauty ; but if it be suffered to
branch out quite low down, it will form a very elegant
head. The maple is well suited to scenes expressive of
graceful beauty, as they unite to a considerable variation
of surface, a pleasing softness and roundness of outline.
In bold or picturesque scenes, they can be employed to
advantage by intermingling them with the more striking
and majestic forms of the oak, etc., where variety and
contrast is desired. The European sycamore, which is
also a maple, has a coarser foliage, and more of strength in
its growth and appearance: it perlfaps approaches nearer
in general expression and effect to the plane tree, than to
our native maples.

It is unnecessary for us to recommend this tree for
avenues, or for bordering the streets of cities, as its general
prevalence in such places sufficiently indicates its acknow-
ledged claims for beauty, shade, and shelter. It bears
pruning remarkably well, and is easily transplanted, even
when of large size, from its native woods or swamps. The

finest trees, however, are produced from seed.

The Sugar maple (Acer saccharinum) is a very abundant.
tree in the northern states and the Canadas, where it
sometimes forms immense forests. The bark is white; the
leaves four or five inches broad, and five-lobed ; varying,
however, in size according to the age of the tree. The
flowers are small, yellowish, and suspended by slender
drooping peduncles. The seed is contained in two capsules
united at the base, and terminated in a membranous wing ;
they are ripe in October. From certain parts of the trunks

of old Sugar maples, the fine wood called bird’s-eye maple
13

194 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

is taken, which is so highly prized by the cabinet-makers ;
and the sap, which flows in abundance from holes bored in
the stem of the tree early in March, produces the well-
known maple sugar. This can be clarified, so as to equal
that of the cane in flavor and appearance ; and it has been
demonstrated that the planting of maple orchards, for the
production of sugar, would be a profitable investment.

The Scarlet-flowering maple (A. rubrum) is found
chiefly on the borders of rivers, or in swamps ; the latter
place appears best suited to this tree, for it there often
attains a very large size: it is frequently called the Soft
maple or Swamp maple. The blossoms come out about
the middle of April while the branches are yet bare of
leaves, and their numerous little pendulous stamens appear
like small tufts of scarlet or purple threads. The leaves
somewhat resemble those of the Sugar maple, but are
rather smaller, and only three or four lobed, glaucous or
whitish underneath, and irregularly toothed on the margin.
This tree may easily be distinguished when young from the
former, by the bark of the trunk, which is grey, with large
whitish spots. Its trunk, in the choicest parts, furnishes the
beautiful wood known as the curled maple.

The White or Silver-leaved maple. (A. eriocarpum.)
This species somewhat resembles the Scarlet-flowering
maple, and they are often confounded together in the
eastern and middle states, where it grows but sparingly.
West of the Alleghany mountains it is seen in perfection,
and is well known as the White maple. Its flowers are
very pale in color, and much smaller than those of the
foregoing sorts. ‘The leaves are divided into four lobes,
and have a beautiful white under surface. Michaux,

speaking of this tree, says: “In no part of the United

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 195

States is it more multiplied than in the western country,
and nowhere is its vegetation more luxuriant than on the
banks of the Ohio. There, sometimes alone and sometimes
mingled with the willow, which is found along these waters,
it contributes singularly, by its magnificent foliage, to the
embellishment of the scene. The brilliant white of the
leaves beneath, forms a striking contrast with the bright
green above ; and the alternate reflection of the two surfaces
in the water, heightening the beauty of this wonderful
moving mirror, aids in forming an enchanting picture,
which, during my long excursions in a canoe -in these re-
gions of solitude and silence, 1 contemplated with unwearied
admiration.”* There, on those fine, deep, alluvial soils, it
often attains twelve or fifteen feet in circumference.

As an ornamental variety, the Silver-leaved maple is one
of the most valuable. It is exceedingly rapid in its growth,
often making shoots six feet long in a season; and the
silvery hue of its foliage, when stirred by the wind, as well
as its fine, half drooping habit, render it highly interesting
to the planter. Admirable specimens of this species may
be seen in the wide streets of Burlington, N. J.

The Moose wood, or Striped maple (A. striatum), is a small
tree with beautifully striped bark. It is often seen on the ©
mountains which border the Hudson, but abounds most
profusely in the north of the continent. Acer nigrum is
the Black sugar tree of Genesee. A. Negundo,t the Ash-
leaved maple, has handsome pinnated foliage of a light
green hue; it forms a- pleasing tree of medium size.
These are our principal native species t

*N. A. Sylva, i. 214. t+ Negundo fraxinifolium.

t Mr. Douglas has discovered a very superb maple (A. macrophyllum), on
the Columbia river, with very Jarge leaves, and fine fragrant yellow blossoms.

196 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Among the finest foreign sorts is the Norway maple
(A. platanoides), with leaves intermediate in appearance
between those of the plane tree and Sugar maple. The
bark of the trunk is brown, and rougher in appearance
than our maples, and the tree is more loose and spreading
in its growth; it also grows more rapidly, and strongly
resembles at a little distance, the button-wood in its young
state. Another interesting species is the sycamore tree or
Great maple (A. pseudo-platanus). The latter also
considerably resembles the plane ; but the leaves, like those
of the common maple, are smoother. They are five-lobed,
acute in the divisions, and are placed on much longer
petioles than those of most of the species. The flowers,
strung in clusters like those of the common currant, are
greenish in color. It is much esteemed as a shade-tree
in Scotland and some parts of the Continent, and grows
with vigor, producing a large head, and widely spreading

branches.

Tue Locust Tres. Robinia.
Nat. Ord. Leguminose. Lin. Syst. Diadelphia, Decandria.

This is a well-known American tree, found growing
wild in all of the states west of the Delaware River. It is
a tree of secondary size, attaining generally the height of
forty or fifty feet. The leaves are pinnated, bluish-green
in color, and are thinly scattered over the branches. The
white blossoms appear in June, and are highly fragrant and
beautiful; and from them the Paris perfumers distil an

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 197

extrait which greatly resembles orange-flower water, and
is used for the same purposes.

As an ornamental tree we do not esteem the locust
highly. The objections to it are, Ist, its meagreness and
lightness of foliage, producing but little shade ; secondly,
the extreme brittleness of its branches, which are liable to
be broken and disfigured by every gale of wind ; and lastly,
the abundance of suckers which it produces. Notwith-
standing these defects, we would not entirely banish the
locust from our pleasure-grounds ; for its light foliage of a
fresh and pleasing green may often be used to advantage
in producing a variety with other trees; and its very fra-
grant blossoms are beautiful, when in the beginning of
summer they hang in loose pendulous clusters from among
its light foliage. These will always speak sufficiently in
its favor to cause it to be planted more or less, where a
variety of trees is desired. It should, however, be re-
membered that the foliage comes out at a late period in
spring, and falls early in autumn, which we consider objec-
tions to any tree that is to be planted in the close vicinity
of the mansion. It is valuable for its extremely rapid
growth when young; as during the first ten or fifteen years
of its life it exceeds in thrifty shoots almost all other forest
trees: but it is comparatively short-lived, and in twenty
years’ time many other trees would completely overtop and
outstrip it. It is easily propagated by seed, which is by
far the best mode of raising it, and it prefers a deep, rich,

sandy loam.*

* There is a great difference in the growth of this tree. In cold or indifferent
soils it presents a rough and rugged aspect ; but in deep, warm, sandy soils it
becomes quite another tree in appearance. The highest specimens we have
ever seen are now growing in such soil on the estate of J. P. Derwint, Esq., at

198 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

As a timber tree of the very first class, the locust has
but few rivals. It is found to be stronger and more dura-
ble than the best oak or Red cedar ; while it is lighter and
equally durable with the Live oak of the south. Its excel-
lency for ship-building is therefore unsurpassed ; and as
much of the timber as can be procured of sufficient size,
commands a high price for that purpose. Great use is also
made of it in tree-nails (the wooden pins which fasten the
side planks to the ship’s frame), and it is now extensively
substituted for the iron ones formerly used for that purpose ;
a considerable quantity of the wood is now even exported
to England for this purpose. [For posts it is more durable
than the Red cedar, and is therefore in high estimation for
fencing. In France, where the tree was introduced by
Jean Robin, herbalist to Henry IV. (whence the name
Robinia), it is much cultivated for the poles used in support-
ing the grapes in vineyards. It has the remarkable pro-
perty, says Michaux, of beginning from the third year to
convert its sap into perfect wood; which is not done by
the elm, oak, beech, or chestnut, until after the tenth or
fifteenth year. Hence excellent and durable timber can
be obtained from this tree in a shorter period than from

any other.*

Fishkill Landing, on the banks of the Hudson, New York. Some specimens
there measure 90 feet, which is higher than Michaux saw on the deep alluvials
in Kentucky, where they are natives. The finest single tree is one standing in
front of the mansion at Clermont, on the Hudson, which is four feet in
diameter.

* Cobbett, who, en passant, though a most remarkable man, was as great a
quack in gardening as the famous pill-dealers now are in medicine, carried over
from this country when he returned to England, a great quantity of seeds of the
Jocust, which he reared and sold in immense quantities. In his “ Woodlands,”
which appeared about that time, he praised its value and utility in the most ex-
aggerated terms, affirming “that no man in America will pretend to say he

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 199

The locust can be cultivated to advantage as a timber
tree, only upon deep, mellow, and rather rich, sandy soils ;
there, its growth is wonderfully vigorous, and an immense
number may be grown upon a small area of ground. In
clayey, heavy, or strong loamy soils the tree never attains
much size, and is extremely liable to the attacks of the borer,
which renders its wood in a great measure valueless. In
particularly favorable situations its culture may be made
extremely profitable.*

There are but two distinct species of locust which attain

ever saw a bit of it in a decayed state ;” and that “its wood is absolutely
indestructible by the powers of earth, air,and water.” “The time will come,”
he continues, “ and it will not be very distant, when the locust tree will be more
common in England than the oak ; when a man would be thought mad if he
used anything but locust in the construction of sills, posts, gates, joists, feet for
rick stands, stocks and axletrees for wheels, hop-poles, pales, or for anything
where there is liability to rot. This time will not be distant, seeing that the
locust tree grows so fast. The next race of children but one, that is to say,
those who will be born 60 years hence, will think the locust trees have always
been the most numerous*trees in England ; and some curious writer of a cen-
tury or two hence, will tell his readers, that wonderful as it may seem, ‘ the
locust was hardly known in England until about the year 1823, when the
nation was introduced to a knowledge of it by William Cobbett.? What he
will say of me besides, I do not know ; but I know he will say this of me. I
enter this upon account, therefore, knowing that I am writing for centuries to
come.” !! For a fuller account of his locust phrensy, we refer our readers to
the very complete article on Robinia, in that magnificent work, the “Arboretum
Britannicum.”

* There is a well known instance of the profit of this tree, which we perceive
has found its way into the memoirs of the Agricultural Society of Paris. A
farmer on Long Island, some sixty years ago, on the year of his marriage,
planted fourteen acres of his farm with the Yellow locust. When his eldest
son married at twenty-two, he cut twelve hundred dollars’ worth of timber from
the field, as a marriage portion, which he gave his son to buy a settlement in
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, then considered a part of the “ western coun-
try.” Three years after the locust grove yielded as much for a daughter ; and
in this way his whole family were provided for ; as the rapidity with which the
young suckers grew up fully repaired the breaches made in the fourteen acres.

200 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the size of trees in this country, viz. the Yellow locust
(R. pseud-acacia), so called from the color of its wood ; and
the Honey locust (R. viscosa), a smaller tree, with reddish
flowers, and branches covered with a viscid honey-like gum.
Some pretty varieties of the former have been originated
in gardens abroad, among which the Parasol locust (Var.
umbraculifera) is decidedly the most interesting. We
recollect some handsome specimens which were imported
by the late M. Parmentier, and grew in his garden at
Brooklyn, Long Island. They were remarkable for their
unique, rounded, umbrella-like heads, when grafted ten or
twelve feet high on the common locust.

There are two pretty distinct varieties of the common
Yellow locust, cultivated on the Hudson. That most fre-
quently seen is the White variety, which forms a tall and
narrow head; the other is the Black locust, with a broad
and more spreading head, and larger trunk; the latter may —
be seen in fine condition at Clermont. It is a much finer
ornamental tree, and appears less liable to the borer than
the White variety.

Tue Turee-THornep Acacia Tres. Gleditschia.
Nat. Ord. Leguminose. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Diecia.

This tree is often called the Three-thorned locust, from
some resemblance to the latter tree. Its delicate, doubly
pinnate leaves, however, are much more like those of the
Acacias, a family of plants not hardy enough to bear our
climate. It is a much finer tree in appearance than the
common locust, although the flowers are greenish, and

inconspicuous, instead of possessing the beauty and fra-

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 201

grance of the latter. There is, however, a peculiar ele-
gance about its light green and beautiful foliage, which
wafts so gracefully in the summer breeze, and folds up on
the slightest shower, that it stands far above that tree in
our estimation, for the embellishment of scenery. The
branches spread out rather horizontally, in a fine, broad,
and lofty head; there are none of the.dead and unsightly
branches so common on the locust; and the light feathery
foliage, lit up in the sunshine, has an airy and transparent
look, rarely seen in so large a tree, which sometimes pro-
duces very happy effects in composition with other trees.
The bark is of a pleasing brown, smooth in surface the
branches are studded over with curious, long, triply-pointed
thorns, which also often jut out in clusters, in every direc-
tion from the trunk of the tree, to the length of four or five
inches, giving it a most singular and forbidding look. In
winter, these and the long seed-pods, five or six inches in
length, which hang upon the boughs at that season, give the
whole tree a very distinct character. These pods contain
a sweetish substance, somewhat resembling honey ;
whence the tree has in some places obtained the name of
Honey locust, which properly belongs to Robinia viscosa.
Another recommendation of this tree, is the variety of
picturesque shapes which it assumes in growing up; some-
times forming a tall pyramidal head of 50 or 60 feet, some-
times a low horizontally branched tree, and at others it
expands into a wide irregular head, quite flattened at the
summit. It does not produce suckers like the locust, and
may therefore be introduced into any part of the grounds.
When but a limited extent is devoted to a lawn or garden,
this tree should be among the first to obtain a place; as
one or two Three-thorned Acacias, mingled with other

202 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

larger and heavier foliage, will at once produce a charming
variety.

The Three-thorned Acacia has been strongly recom-
mended for hedges. It is too liable to become thin at the
bottom, to serve well for an outer inclosure, but if kept
well trimmed, it forms a capital farm fence and protection
against the larger animals, growing up in much less time
than the hawthorn. Like the locust, it has the disadvan-
tage of expanding its foliage late in the spring. In the
strong rich soils which it prefers, it grows very vigorously,
and is easily propagated from seeds.

The Three-thorned Acacia (G. triacanthos) is the prin-
cipal species, and is indigenous to the states west of the
Alleghanies. G. monosperma is another kind, which is
scarcely distinguishable from the Three-thorned, except in
having one-seeded pods. The seedlings raised from G.
triacanthos are often entirely destitute of thorns.

There is a fine species called the Chinese (G. horrida),
with larger and finer foliage, and immense triple thorns,
which is interesting from its great singularity. A tree of
this kind which we imported, has stood our coldest winters
perfectly uninjured, and promises to be beautiful and very
hardy. Some noble specimens of the common Three-
thorned Acacia may be seen upon the lawn at Hyde Park,
the fine seat of the late Dr. Hosack.

Tue Jupas Tree. Cercis.
Nat. Ord. Leguminose. Lin. Syst. Decandria, Monogynia.

A handsome low tree, about 20 feet in height, which is

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 203

found scattered sparsely through warm sheltered valleys,
along the Hudson and other rivers of the northern sections
of the United States, but most abundantly on the Ohio.
It is valuable as an ornamental tree, no less on account of
its exceedingly neat foliage, which is exactly heart-shaped,
or cordiform, and of a pleasing green tint, than for its
pretty pink blossoms. These, which are pea-shaped, are
produced in little clusters close to the branches, often in
great profusion, early in the spring, before the leaves have
expanded. From the appearance of the limbs at that
period, it has in some places obtained the name of Red-
bud. It is then one of the most ornamental of trees, and,
in company with the Dog-wood, serves greatly to enliven
the scene, and herald the advent of the floral season.
These blossoms, according to Loudon (Encycel. of Plants),
having an agreeable poignancy, are frequently eaten in
salads abroad, and pickled by the French families in
Canada. The name of Judas tree appears to have been
whimsically bestowed by Gerard, an old English gardener,
who described it in 1596, and relates that “this is the tree
whereon Judas did hange himselfe ; and not upon the elder

tree, as it is said.”

There are two species in common cultivation; the
American (C. Canadensis) and the European (C. Sili-
quastrum). The latier much resembles our native tree.
The flowers, however, are deeper in color; the leaves
darker, and less pointed at the extremity. It also produces
blossoms rather more profusely than the American tree.
Both species are highly worthy of a place in the garden, or
near the house, where their pleasing vernal influences may

be observed.

204 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tue Cuestnut Tree. Castanea.
Nat. Ord. Corylacee. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

The chestnut, for its qualities in Landscape Gardening,
ranks with that king of the forest, the oak. Like that tree,
it attains an enormous size; and its longevity in some cases
is almost equally remarkable. Its fine massy foliage, and
sweet nuts, have rendered it a favorite tree since a very
remote period. Among the ancients, the latter were a
common article of food.

«‘ Sunt nobis mitia poma,

Castanee molles, et pressi copia lactis.”
Vire. Ect. 1.

They appear to have been in general use, both in a raw
and cooked state. In times of scarcity, they probably
supplied in some measure the place of bread-stuffs, and
were thence highly valued : -

« As for the thrice three angled beech nut shell,
Or Chestnut’s armed huske and hid kernell,
No squire durst touch, the law would not afford,
Kept for the court, and for the king’s own board.”
Bp. Hall, Sat. B. Ti. 1.

Even to this day, in those parts of France and Italy
nearest the great chestnut forests of the Appenines, these
nuts form a large portion of the food which sustains the
peasantry, where grain is but little cultivated, and potatoes
almost unknown. There a sweet and highly nutritious
flour is prepared from them, which makes a delicious
bread. Large quantities of the fruit are therefore

annually collected in those countries, and dried and stored

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 205

away for the winter’s consumption. Old Evelyn says,
“the bread of the flour is exceedingly nutritive : it is a
robust food, and makes women well complexioned, as |
have read in a good author. They also make fritters of
chestnut flour, which they wet with rose-water, and
sprinkle with grated parmigans, and so fry them in fresh
butter for a delicate.” The fruit of the chestnut abounds
'in saccharine matter; and we learn from a French
periodical, that experiments have been made, by which it
is ascertained that the kernel yields nearly sixteen per
cent. of good sugar.

As a timber tree, this is greatly inferior to the oak, being
looser grained, and more liable to decay; and the
American wood is more open to this objection than that
produced on the opposite side of the Atlantic. It is,
however, in general use among us, for posts and rails in
fencing ; and when the former are charred, they are found
to be quite durable.

The finest natural situations for this tree appear to be
the mountainous slopes of mild climates, where it attains
the greatest possible perfection. Michaux informs us, that
the most superb and lofty chestnuts in America are to be
found in such situations, in the forests of the Carolinas.
Abroad, every one will call to mind the far-famed chestnuts
of Mount Etna, of wonderful age and extraordinary size.
The great chestnut there, has excited the surprise of
numerous travellers ; at present, however, it appears to be
scarcely more than a mere shell, the wreck of former
greatness. When visited by M. Houel (Arboretum Brit.),
it was in a state of decay, having lost the greater part of
its branches, and its trunk was quite hollow. A house was
erected in the interior, and some country people resided in

206 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

it, with an oven, in which, according to the custom of the
country, they dried chestnuts, filberts, and other fruits,
which they wished to preserve for winter use; using as
fuel, when they could find no other, pieces cut with a
hatchet from the interior of the tree. In Brydone’s time.
in 1770, this tree measured two hundred and four feet in
circumference. He says it had the appearance of five
distinct trees ; but he was assured that the space was once
filled with solid timber, and there was no bark on the
inside. This circumstance of an old trunk, hollow in the
interior, becoming separated so as to have the appearance
of being the remains of several distinct trees, is frequently
met with in the case of very old mulberry trees in Great
Britain, and olive trees in Italy. Kircher, about a century
before Brydone, affirms that an entire flock of sheep might
be inclosed within the Etna chestnut, as in a fold.* (Ar-
boretum Brit. p. 1988.)

In considering the chestnut as highly adapted to
ornament the grounds of extensive country residences,
much that we have already said of the oak will apply to
this tree. When young, its smooth stem, clear and bright
foliage, and lively aspect, when adorned with the numerous
light greenish yellow blossoms, which project beyond the
mass of leaves, render it a graceful and beautiful tree.

* One of the most celebrated Chestnut trees on record, is that called the
Tortworth Chestnut, in England. In 1772, Lord Ducie, the owner, had a
portrait of it taken, which was accompanied by the following description :
«“ The east view of the ancient Chestnut tree at Tortworth, in the county of
Gloucester, which measures nineteen yards in cireumference, and is mentioned
by Sir Robert Aikins in his history of that county, as a famous tree in King
John’s reign: and by Mr. Evelyn in his Sylva, to have been so remarkable in
the reign of King Stephen, 1135, as then to be called the great Chestnut of
Tortworth ; from which it may reasonably be presumed to have been standing
before the Conquest, 1066.” This tree is still standing.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 207

{t has long been a favorite with the poets for its grateful
shade; and as the roots run deep, the soil beneath it is
sufficiently rich and sheltered to afford an asylum for the
minutest beauties of the woods. Tennyson sweetly
says :—
«That slope beneath the chestnut tall
Is wooed with choicest breaths of air,

Methinks that I could tell you all
The cowslips and the king cups there.”

When old, its huge trunk, wide-spread branches, lofty head,
and irregular outline, all contribute to render it a
picturesque tree of the very first class. In that state,
when standing alone, with free room to develope itself on
every side, like the oak, it gives a character of dignity,
majesty, and grandeur, to the scene, beyond the power of
most trees to confer. It is well known that the favorite
tree of Salvator Rosa, and one which was most frequently
introduced with a singularly happy effect into his wild and
picturesque compositions, was the chestnut; sometimes
a massy and bold group of its verdure, but oftener an old
and storm-rifted giant, half leafless, or a barren trunk
coated with a rich verdure of mosses and lichens.

The chestnut in maturity, like the oak, has a great
variety of outline ; and no trees are better fitted than
these for the formation of grand groups, heavy masses,
or wide outlines of foliage. A higher kind of beauty, with
more dignity and variety, can be formed of these two
genera of trees when disposed in grand masses, than with
any other forest trees of temperate climates; perhaps we
may say of any climate.

There is so litile difference in the common Sweet
chestnut (Castanea vescz) of both hemispheres, that they

208 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

are generally considered the same species. Varieties have
been produced in Europe, which far surpass our common
chestnuts of the woods in size, though not in delicacy and
richness of flavor. Those cultivated for the table in
France, are known by the name of marrons. These
improved sorts of the Spanish chestnut bear fruit nearly
as large as that of the MHorse-chestnut, inferior in
sweetness, when raw, to our wild species, but delicious
when roasted. The Spanish chestnut thrives well, and
forms a large tree, south of the Highlands of the Hudson,
but is rather tender north of this neighborhood. A tree
in the grounds at Presque Isle, the seat of William
Denning, Esq., Dutchess Co., is now 40 feet high. They
may be procured from the nurseries, and we can hardly
recommend to our planters more acceptable additions to
our nut-bearing forest trees.

The Chinquapin, or Dwarf chestnut (C. pumila), is
a curious low bush, from four to six feet high. The leaves
are nearly the size of the ordinary chestnut, or rather
smaller, and the fruit about two-thirds as large. It is indi-
genous to all the states south of Pennsylvania, and is often
found in great abundance. It is a curious little tree, or
more properly a shrub, and merits a place in the garden ;
or it may be advantageously planted for underwood in
a group of large trees.

As the chestnut, like the oak, forms strong tap-roots, it is
removed with some difficulty. The finest trees are pro-
duced from the nut, and their growth is much more rapid
when young, than that of the transplanted tree. It prefers
a deep sandy loam, rather moist than dry; and will not,
like many forest trees, accommodate itself to wet and low

situations.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 209

Tue Osace Orance Tree. Maclura.
Nat. Ord. Urticacee. Lin. Syst. Diccia, Tetrandria.

This interesting tree is found growing wild on the
Arkansas River, and other western tributaries of the
Mississippi, south of St. Louis, where, according to Mr.
Nuttall, it attains the height of 50 or 60 feet. The
branches are rather light-colored, and armed with spines
(produced at every joint) about an inch and a half long.
The leaves are long, ovate, and acuminate, or pointed
at the extremity ; they are deep green, and more glossy
and bright than those of the orange. The blossoms are
greenish ; and the fruit is about the shape and size of a
large orange, but the surface much rougher than that fruit.
In the south, we are told, it assumes a deep yellow color,
and, at a short distance, strikingly resembles the common
orange; the specimens of fruit which we have seen
growing in Philadelphia, did not assume that fine color ;
but the appearance of the tree laden with it, is not unlike
that of a large orange tree. It was first transplanted into
our gardens from a village of the Osage tribe of Indians,
whence the common name of Osage orange. The intro-
duction of this tree was one of the favorable results of
Lewis and Clarke’s Expedition. It was named by them
in honor of the late Wm. Maclure, Esq., President of the
American Academy of Natural Sciences.

The wood is fine grained, yellow in color, and takes
a brilliant polish. It is also very strong and elastic, and on
this account the Indians of the wide district to which
this tree is indigenous, employ it extensively for bows,

greatly preferring it to any other timber. Hence its com-
14

210 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

mon name among the white inhabitants is Bodac, a cor-
ruption of the term bois d’arc (bow-wood), of the French
settlers. A fine yellow dye is extracted from the wood,
similar to that of the Fustic.

As the Osage orange belongs to the moneecious class of
plants, it does not perfect its fruit unless both the male and
female trees are growing in the same neighborhood.
Many have believed the fruit to be eatable, both from its
fine appearance, and from its affinity with and resemblance
to that of the bread-fruit; but all attempts to render it
pleasant, either cooked or in a raw state, have hitherto
failed: it is therefore probably inedible, though not injuri-
ous. Perhaps when fully ripened, some mode of preparing
it by baking or otherwise, may render it palatable.

As an ornamental tree, the Osage orange is rather too
loose in the disposition of its wide-spreading branches, to be
called beautiful in its form. But the bright glossy hue of
its foliage, and especially the unique appearance of a good
sized tree when covered with the large, orange-like fruit,
render it one of the most interesting of our native trees ;
while it has the same charm of rarity as an exotic, since it
was introduced from the far west, and is yet but little
planted in the United States. On a small lawn, where but
few trees are needed, and where it is desirable that the
species employed should all be as distinct as possible, to
give the whole as much variety as can be obtained in
a limited space, such trees should be selected as will not
only be ornamental, but combine some other charm,
association, or interest. Among such trees, we would by
all means give the Osage orange a foremost place. It has
the additional recommendation of being a fine shade tree,

and of producing an excellent and durable wood.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 211

The stout growth and strong thorns of this tree have
been thought indicative of its usefulness for the making of
hedges: a method of fencing, which sooner or later must
be adopted in many parts of this country: and from the
experiments which we have seen made with plants of the
Osage orange, we think it likely to answer a very valuable
purpose ; especially in the middle and southern states.
The Messrs. Landreth of Philadelphia have lately offered
many thousands of them to the public at a low rate, and
we hope to see the matter fairly tested in various parts of
the Union.

A rich deep loam is the soil best adapted to the growth
of this tree ; and as it is rather tender when young (though
quite hardy when it attains a considerable size) it should,
as far as possible, be planted in a rather sheltered situation.
A dry soil is preferable, if it must be placed in a cold
aspect, as all plants not perfectly hardy are much injured
by the late growth, caused by an excess of moisture and
consequent upon an immature state of the wood, which is
unable to resist the effects of a severe winter.

Tue Muxuserry Tree. Morus.
Nat. Ord. Urticaceez. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Tetrandria.

The three principal species of the Mulberry, are the
common Red American, the European Black, and the
White mulberries. None of them are truly handsome in
scenery ; and the two latter are generally low spreading
trees, valued entirely for the excellency of the fruit, or the

212 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

suitableness of the foliage for feeding silkworms. Our
common mulberry, however, in free, open situations, forms
a large, wide-spreading, horizontally branched, and not
inelegant tree: the rough, heart-shaped leaves with which
it is thickly clothed, afford a deep shade ; and it groups well agi
with the lime, the catalpa, and many other round-headed |
trees. We consider it, therefore, duly entitled to a place
in all extensive plantations; while the pleasant flavor of
its slightly acid, dark red fruit, will recommend it to those
who wish to add to the delicacies of the dessert. The
timber of our wild mulberry tree is of the very first quality ;
when fully seasoned, it takes a dull lemon-colored hue, and
is scarcely less durable than the locust or Live oak. Like
those trees, it is much valued by ship-builders; and at
Philadelphia and Baltimore it commands a high price, for
the frame-work, knees, floor-timbers, and tree-nails of
vessels. The Red mulberry is much slower in its growth
than the locust ; but so far as we are aware it is not liable
to the attacks of any insect destructive to its timber ; and
it would probably be found profitable to cultivate it as a
timber tree. The locust, it will be remembered, grows
thriftily only on peculiar soils, loose, dry, and mellow ; the
Red mulberry prefers deep, moist, and rich situations. No
extensive experiments, so far as we can learn, have been
made in its culture; but we would recommend it to the
particular attention of those who have facilities for planta-
tions of this kind.

The Black mulberry of Europe (Morus nigra) is a low,
slow-growing tree, with rough leaves, somewhat resembling
those of our Red mulberry, but more coarsely serrated, and
often found divided into four or five lobes ; while the leaves,

which are not heart-shaped on our native species, are gene-

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 213

rally three-lobed. The European mulberry bears a fruit
four or five times as large as the American, full of rich,
sweet juice. It has long been a favorite in England, and
is one of the most healthy and delicious fruits of the season.

Glover says:

“ There the flushing peach,
The apple, citron, almond, pear, and date,
Pomegranates, purple mulberry, and fig,
From interlacing branches mix their hues
And scents, the passengers’ delight.”

Leonw. B. II.

We regret that so excellent a fruit should be so little
cultivated here. It succeeds extremely well in the middle
states ; and as it ripens at the very period in midsummer
when fruits are scarcest, there can be no more welcome
addition to our pomonal treasures, than its deep purple and
luscious berries. According to Loudon, it is a tree of great
durability ; in proof of which he quotes a specimen at Sion
House, 300 years old, which is supposed to have been
planted in the 16th century by the botanist Turner.

The White mulberry (M. alba) is the species upon the
leaves of which the silkworms are fed. The fruit is insipid
and tasteless, and the tree is but little cultivated to embellish
ornamental plantations, though one of the most useful in
the world, when its importance in the production of silk is
taken into account. There are a great number of varieties
of this species to be found in the different nurseries and silk
plantations ; among them the Chinese mulberry (M. multi-
caulis) grows rapidly, but scarcely forms more than a large
shrub at the north; and its very large, tender, and soft
green foliage is interesting in a large collection. The fruit
is, we believe, of no importance ; but it is the most valuable

214 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of all mulberries as food for the silkworm, while its growth
is the most vigorous, and its leaves more easily gathered
than those of any other tree of the genus.

Tue Paper Muteerry Tres. Broussonetia.
Nat. Ord. Urticacer. Lin. Syst. Dicecia, Tetrandria.

The Paper mulberry is an exotic tree of a low growth,
rarely exceeding twenty-five or thirty feet, indigenous to
Japan and the South Sea Islands, but very common in our
gardens. It is remarkable for the great variety of forms
exhibited in its foliage ; as upon young trees it is almost
impossible to find two exactly alike, though the prevailing
outlines are either heart-shaped, or more or less deeply cut
or lobed. These leaves are considered valueless for feed-
ing the silkworm; but in the South Seas the bark is woven
into dresses worn by the females ; and in China and Japan
extensive use is made of it in the manufacture of a paper
of the softest and most beautiful texture. This is fabricated
from the inner bark of the young shoots, which is first boiled
to a soft pulp, and then submitted to processes greatly
similar to those performed in our paper-mills. This tree
blossoms in spring and ripens its fruit in the month of
August. The latter is dark scarlet, and quite singular and
ornamental, though of no value. The genus is dicecious ;
and the reason why so few fruit-bearing trees are seen in
the United States, is because we generally cultivate only
one of the sexes, the female. M. Parmentier, however, who

introduced the male plant from Europe, disseminated it in

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 215

several parts of the country; and the beauty of the tree
has thereby been augmented by the interest which it
possesses when laden with its long, hairy berries.

The value of the Paper mulberry, in ornamental planta-
tions, arises from its exotic look, as compared with other
trees, from the singular diversity of its foliage, the beauty
of its reddish berries, and from the rapidity of its growth.
It is deficient in hardiness for a colder climate than that of
New York; but further south it is considerably esteemed
as a shade-tree for lining the side-walks in cities. In win-
ter its light fawn or ash-colored bark, mottled with patches
of a darker grey, contrasts agreeably with other trees. It
has little picturesque beauty, and should never be planted
in quantities, but only in scattered specimens, to give
interest and variety to a walk in the lawn or shrubbery.

Tue Sweet Gum Tree. Liquidambar.
Nat. Ord. Platanaceex. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Polyandria.

According to Michaux,* the Sweet gum is one of our
most extensively diffused trees. On the seashore it is seen
as far north as Portsmouth; and it extends as far south as
the Gulf of Mexico and the Isthmus of Darien. In many
of the southern states it is one of the commonest trees of the
forest ; it is rarely seen, however, along the banks of the
Hudson (except in New Jersey), or other large streams of
New York. It is not unlike the maple in general appear-
ance, and its palmate, five-lobed leaves are in outline much

# N. A. Sylva, i. 315.

216 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

like the Sugar maple, though darker in color and firmer in
texture. It may also be easily distinguished from that tree,
by the curious appearance of its secondary branches, which
have a peculiar roughness, owing to the bark attaching
itself in plates edgewise to the trunk, instead of laterally, as
in the usual manner. The fruit is globular, somewhat
resembling that of the buttonwood, but much rougher, and
bristling with points. The male and female catkins appear
on different branches of the same tree early in spring.

This tree grows in great perfection in the forests of New
Spain. It was first described by a Spanish naturalist, Dr.
Hernandez, who observed that a fragrant and transparent
gum issued from its trunk in that country, to which, from
its appearance, he gave the name of liquid amber. This is
now the common name of the tree in Europe ; and the gum
is at present an article of export from Mexico, being chiefly
valued in medicine as a styptic, and for its healing and
balsamic properties. “This substance, which in the shops
is sometimes called the white balsam of Peru, or liquid
storax, is, when it first issues from the tree, perfectly liquid
and clear, white, with a slight tinge of yellow, quite bal-
samic ; and having a most agreeable fragrance, resembling
that of ambergris or styrax. It is stimulant and aromatic,
and has long been used in France as a perfume, especially
for gloves.”* In the middle states a fragrant substance
sometimes exudes from the leaves, and, by incision, small
quantities of the gum may be procured from the trunk ; but
a warmer climate appears to be necessary to its production
in considerable quantities.

We hardly know a more beautiful tree than the Liquid

* Arboretum Brit. 2051.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. Z17

amber in every stage of its growth, and during every season
of the year. Its outline is not picturesque or graceful, but
simply beautiful, more approaching that of the maple than
any other: it is, therefore, a highly pleasing, round-headed
or tapering tree, which unites and harmonizes well with
almost any others in composition ; but the chief beauty lies
in the foliage. During the whole of the summer months
it preserves, unsoiled, that dark glossy freshness which is
so delightful to the eye ; while the singular, regularly palmate
form of the leaves readily distinguishes it from the common
trees of a plantation. But in autumn it assumes its gayest
livery, and is decked in colors almost too bright and vivid
for foliage ; forming one of the most brilliant objects in
American scenery at that period of the year. The pre-
vailing tint of the foliage is then a deep purplish red, unlike
any symptom of decay, and quite as rich as is commonly
seen in the darker blossoms of a Dutch parterre. This is
sometimes varied by a shade deeper or lighter, and occa-
sionally an orange tint is assumed. When planted in the
neighborhood of our fine maples, ashes, and other trees
remarkable for their autumnal coloring, the effect, in a

ry autumn, is almost magical. Whoever has

ersey in such a season, must have been struck with the
gay tints of the numberless forest trees, which line the
roads through those sandy plains, and with the conspicuous
beauty of the Sweet gum, or Liquidamber.

The bark of this tree when full grown, or nearly so, is
exceedingly rough and furrowed. like that of the oak. The
wood is fine-grained, and takes a good polish in cabinet
work ; though it ‘is not so durable, nor so much esteemed

for such purposes, as that of the Black walnut and some

218 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

other native trees. The average height of full grown trees
is about 35 or 40 feet.

Liquidambar styraciflua is the only North American
species. It grows most rapidly in moist or even wet situa-
tions, though it will accommodate itself to a drier soil.

Tue Watnut Tree. Juglans.
Nat. Ord. Juglandacee. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Polyandria.

The three trees which properly come under this head,
and belong to the genus Juglans, are the Black walnut, the
Kuropean walnut, and the Butternut.

The Black walnut is one of the largest trees of our native
forests. In good soils it often attains a stature of 60 or 70
feet, and a diameter of three or four feet in the trunk, with
a corresponding amplitude of branches. The leaves, about
a foot or eighteen inches in length, are composed of six or
eight pairs of opposite leaflets, terminated by an odd one.
They contain a very strong aromatic odor, which is emitted
plentifully when they are bruised. The large nut, always
borne on the extremity of the young shoots, is round, and
covered with a thick husk ; which, instead of separating
into pieces, and falling off like those of the hickory, rots
away and decays gradually. The kernel of the Black
walnut, too well known to need any description here, is
highly esteemed, and is even considered by some persons
to possess a finer flavor than any other walnut.

The timber of this tree is very valuable : when well sea-

soned it is as durable as the White oak, and is less liable

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 219

to the attacks of sea-worms, etc., than almost any other ; it
is, therefore, highly esteemed in naval architecture for
certain purposes. But its great value is in cabinet work.
Its color, when exposed to the air, is a fine, rich, dark
brown, beautifully veined in certain parts ; and as it takes
a brilliant polish, it is coming into general use in the
United States for furniture, as well as for the interior
finishing of houses.

The Black walnut has strong claims upon the Landscape
Gardener, as it is one of the grandest and most massive
trees which he can employ. When full grown it is scarcely
inferior in the boldness of its ramification or the amplitude
of its head to the oak or chestnut; and what it lacks in
spirited outline when compared with those trees, is fully
compensated, in our estimation, by its superb and heavy
masses of foliage, which catch and throw off the broad
lights and shadows in the finest manner. When the Black
walnut stands alone on a deep fertile soil it becomes a truly
majestic tree; and its lower branches often sweep the
ground in a graceful curve, which gives additional beauty
to its whole expression. It is admirably adapted to exten-
sive lawns, parks, or plantations, where there is no want
of room for the attainment of its full size and fair propor-
tions. Its rapid growth and umbrageous foliage also
recommend it for wide public streets and avenues.

The European walnut (J. regia), or, as it is generally
termed here, the Madeira nut, is one of the most common
cultivated trees of Europe, where it was introduced origi-
nally from Persia. It differs from our Black walnut (which,
however, it much resembles) in the smooth, grey bark of
the stem, the leaves composed of three or four -pair of
leaflets, and in the very thin-shelled fruit, which, though

220 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

not exceeding the Black walnut in size, yet contains a
much larger kernel, which is generally considered more
delicate in flavor. In the interior of France orchards of
the walnut are planted, and a considerable commerce is
carried on in its products, consisting chiefly of the fruit, of
which large quantities are consumed in all parts of Europe.
The wood is greatly used in the manufacture of gun-stocks,
and in cabinet-making (though it is much inferior to the
American walnut for this purpose) ; and the oil extracted
from the kernel is in high estimation for mixing with deli-
cate colors used in painting and other purposes.

The European walnut is a noble tree in size, and thickly
clad in foliage. It is much esteemed as a shade tree by the
Dutch ; and Evelyn, who is an enthusiastic admirer of its
beauties, mentions their fondness for this tree as in the high-
est degree praiseworthy. “The bergstras | Bergstrasse],
which extends from Heidelberg to Darmstadt, is all planted
with walnuts ; for as by an ancient law the Borderers were
obliged to nurse up and take care of them, and that chiefly
for their ornament and shade, so as a man may ride for
many miles about that country under a continual arbor or
close walk,—the traveller both refreshed with the fruit and
shade. How much such public plantations improve the
glory and wealth of a nation! In several places betwixt
Hanau and Frankfort in Germany, no young farmer is
permitted to marry a wife till he bring proof that he hath
planted, and is the father of a stated number of walnut
frees.

The nuts are imported into this country in great

* Hunter's Evelyn, p. 168.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 221

quantities ; and as they are chiefly brought from Spain
and the Madeiras, they are here almost entirely known by
the name of the Madeira nut. The tree is but little
cultivated among us, though highly deserving more
extensive favor, both on account of its value and beauty.
It grows well in the climate of the middle states, and bears
freely ; a specimen eighteen or twenty years old, in the
garden of the author, has reached thirty-five feet in height,
and bears two or three bushels of fine fruit annually ; from
which we have already propagated several hundred
individuals. It is not perfectly hardy north of this.

As an ornamental tree, Gilpin remarks, that the warm
russet hue of its young foliage makes a pleasing variety
among the vivid green of other trees, about the end of
May ; and the same variety is maintained in summer, by
the contrast of its yellowish hue, when mixed in any
quantity with trees of a darker tint. It stands best alone,
as the early loss of its foliage is then of less consequence,
and its ramification is generally beautiful.

The Butternut (J. cathartica) belongs to this section,
and is chiefly esteemed for its fruit, which abounds in oil,
and is very rich and sweet. The foliage somewhat
resembles that of the Black walnut, though the leaflets are
smaller and narrower. The form of the nut, however, is
strikingly different, being oblong, oval, and narrowed to a
point at the extremity. Unlike the walnut, the husk is
covered with a sticky gum, and the surface of the nut is
much rougher than any other of the walnut genus. The
bark of the butternut is grey, and the tops of old trees
generally have a flattened appearance. It is frequently
an uncouth, ill-shapen, and ugly tree in form, though

222 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

occasionally, also, quite striking and picturesque. And it
is well worthy of a place for the excellence of its fruit.*

Tue Hickory Tree. Carya.
Nat. Ord. Juglandacee. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Polyandria.

The hickories are fine and lofty North American trees,
highly valuable for their wood, and the excellent fruit
borne by some of the species. The timber is extremely
elastic, and very heavy, possessing great strength and
tenacity. It is not much employed in architecture, as it is
peculiarly liable to the attacks of worms, and decays
quickly when exposed to moisture. But it is very exten-
sively employed for all purposes requiring great elasticity
and strength; as for axletrees, screws, the wooden rings
used upon the rigging of vessels, whip-handles, and axe-
handles; and an immense quantity of the young poles are
employed in the manufacture of hoops, for which they
are admirably adapted.

For fuel, no American wood is equal to this in the
brilliancy with which it burns, or in the duration or amount
of heat given out by it: it therefore commands the highest
price in market for that purpose.

The hickories are nearly allied to the walnuts; the

* Loudon errs greatly in his Arboretum, in supposing the butternut to be
identical with the Black walnut: no trees in the whole American forest are
more easily distinguished at first sight. He also states the fruit to be rancid
and of little value ; but no American lad of a dozen years will accord with
him in this opinion,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 223

chief botanical distinction consisting in the covering to
the nut, or husk; which in the hickories separates into
four valves, or pieces, when ripe, instead of adhering in a
homogeneous coat, as upon the Black walnut and butter-
nut. In size and appearance, the hickories rank with the
first class of forest trees; most of them growing
vigorously to the height of 60 or 80 feet, with fine straight
trunks, well balanced and ample heads, and handsome,
lively, pinnated foliage. When confined among other
trees in the forest, they shoot up 50 or 60 feet without
branches; but when standing singly, they expand into a
fine head near the ground and produce a noble, lofty
pyramid of foliage, rather rounded at the top. They have
all the qualities which are necessary to constitute fine,
graceful park trees, and are justly entitled to a place in
every considerable plantation.

The most ornamental species are the Shellbark hickory,
the Pignut, and the Pecan-nut. The former and the latter
produce delicious nuts, and are highly worthy of
cultivation for their fruit alone; while all of them assume
very handsome shapes during every stage of their growth,
and ultimately become noble trees. Varieties of the
Shellbark hickory are sometimes seen producing nuts of
twice or thrice the ordinary size; and we have not the
least doubt that the fruit might be so improved in size and
delicacy of flavor by careful cultivation, as greatly to
surpass the European walnut, for the table. This result
will probably be attained by planting the nuts of the finest
varieties found in our woods, in rich moist soil, kept in
high cultivation; as all improved varieties of fruit have
been produced in this way, and not, as many suppose, by
cultivating the original species. These remarks also

224 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

apply to the Pecan-nut; a western sort, which thrives well
in the middle states, and which produces a nut more
delicate in flavor than any other of this continent.

These trees form strong tap-roots, and are, therefore,
somewhat difficult to transplant; but they are easily
reared from the nut; and, for the reason stated above, this
method should be adopted in preference to any other,
except in particular cases.

The principal species of the hickory are the following:

The Shellbark hichory (C. alba), so called on account
of the roughness of its bark, which is loosened from the
trunk in long scales or pieces, bending outwards at the
extremity, and remaining attached by the middle; this
takes place, however, only on trees of some size. The
leaves are composed of two pair of leaflets, with an odd or
terminal one. The scales which cover the buds of the
Shellbark in winter, adhere only to the lower half, while
the upper half of the bud is left uncovered, by which this
sort is readily distinguished from the other species. The
hickory nuts of our markets are the product of this tree;
they are much esteemed in every part of the Union, and
are exported in considerable quantities to Kurope. Among
many of the descendants of the original Dutch settlers of
‘New York and New J ersey, the fruit is commonly known
by the appellation of the Kisky-tom nut.*

The Pecan-nut (Pacainer of the French), (C. olivefor-
mis) is found only in the western states. It abounds on
the Missouri, Arkansas, Wabash, and Illinois Rivers, and

* In some parts, pleasant social parties which meet at stated times during
the winter season, are called Kisky-toma, from the regular appearance of these
nuts among the refreshments of the evening.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 225

a portion of the Ohio: Michaux states that there is a
swamp of 800 acres on the right bank of the Ohio,
opposite the Cumberland river, entirely covered with it.
It is a handsome, stately tree, about 60 or 70 feet in height,
with leaves a foot or eighteen inches long, composed of
six or seven pairs of leaflets much narrower than those
of our hickories. The nuts are contained in a thin,
somewhat four-sided husk; they are about an inch or an
inch and a half long, smooth, cylindrical, and thin-shelled.
The kernel is not, like most of the hickories, divided by
partitions, and it has a very delicate and agreeable flavor.
They form an object of petty commerce between Upper
and Lower Louisiana. From New Orleans, they are
exported to the West Indies, and to the ports of the
United States.*

Besides these two most valuable species, our forests
produce the Pignut hickory (C. porcina), a lofty tree with
five to seven pairs of leaflets, so called from the compara-
tive worthlessness of its fruit; which is very thick-shelled,
and generally is left on the ground for the swine, squirrels,
etc., to devour. It is easily distinguished in winter by the
smaller size of its brown shoots, and its small oval buds.
Its wood is considered the toughest and strongest of any
of the trees of this section. The thick Shellbark hickory
(C. laciniosa) resembles much in size and appearance the
common Shellbark; but the nuts are double the size, the
shell much thicker and yellowish, while that of the latter
is white. It is but little known except west of the
Alleghanies. The Mockernut hickory (C. tomentosa) is
so called from the deceptive appearance of the nuts,

* N. A. Sylva, i. 168.
15

226 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

which are generally of large size, but contain only a very
small kernel. The leaves are composed of but four pairs
of sessile leaflets, with an odd one at the end. The trunk
of the old trees is very rugged, and the wood is one of the
best for fuel.

The Bitternut hickory (C. amara), sometimes called the
White hickory, grows 60 feet high in New Jersey. The
husk which covers the nut of this species, has four winged
appendages on its upper half, and never hardens like the
other sorts, but becomes soft and decays. The shell is
thin, but the kernel is so bitter that even the squirrels
refuse to eat it. The Water Bitternut (C. aquatica) isa
very inferior sort, growing in the swamps and rice fields
of the southern states. The leaflets are serrated, and
resemble in shape the leaves of the peach tree. Both the
fruit and timber are much inferior to those of all the other
hickories.

Tue Mountain Asn Tree. Pyrus.*

Nat. Ord. Rosacee. Lin. Syst. Icosandria, Di-Pentagynia.

‘The European Mountain ash (Pyrus aucuparia) is an
elegant tree of the medium size, with an erect stem,
smooth bark, and round head. The leaves are pinnated,
four or five inches in length, and slightly resemble those
of the ash. The snow-white flowers are produced in large
flat clusters, in the month of May, which are thickly

* Sorbus of the old Botanists.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 227

scattered over the outer surface of the tree, and give it a
lively appearance. These are succeeded by numerous
bunches of berries, which in autumn turn to a brilliant
scarlet, and are then highly ornamental. For the sake of
these berries, this tree is a great favorite with birds ; and
in Germany it is called the Vogel Beerbaum, i. e. bird’s
berry tree, and is much used by bird catchers to bait their
springs with.

Twenty-five feet is about the average height of the
Mountain ash in this country. Abroad it grows more
vigorously ; and in Scotland, where it is best known by the
name of the Roan or Rowan tree, it sometimes reaches the
altitude of 35 or 40 feet. The lower classes throughout
the whole of Britain, for a long time attributed to its
branches the power of being a sovereign charm against
witches ; and Sir Thomas Lauder informs us that this
superstition is still in existence in many parts of the High-
lands, as well as in Wales. It is probable that this tree
was a great favorite with the Druids; for it is often seen
growing near their ancient mystical circles of stones. The
dairymaid, in many parts of England, still preserves the old
custom of driving her cows to pasture with a switch of the
roan tree, which she believes has the power to shield them
from all evil spells.* “Evelyn mentions that it is cus-
tomary in Wales to plant this tree in churchyards ; and
Miss Kent in her Sylvan Sketches, makes the following
remarks :—‘In former times this tree was supposed to be
possessed of the property of driving away witches and evil
spirits ; and this property is alluded to in one of the stanzas
of a very ancient song, called the Laidley Worm of Spin-
dleton’s Heughs..

* Lightfoot, Flora Scotica.

228 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

‘ Their spells were vain ; the boys return’d
To the Queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that “ witches have no power
Where there is rowan-tree wood ?”

“ The last line of this stanza leads to the true reading of a
stanza in Shakspeare’s tragedy of Macbeth. The sailor’s
wife, on the witch’s requesting some chestnuts, hastily
answers, ‘A rown-tree, witch !"—but many of the editions
have it, ‘aroint thee, witch!’ which is nonsense, and evi-
dently a corruption.”*

The European Mountain ash is quite a favorite with
cultivators here, and deservedly so. Its foliage is extremely
neat, its blossoms pretty, and its blazing red berries in
autumn communicate a cheerfulness to the season, and
harmonize happily with the gay tints of our native forest
trees. It is remarkably well calculated for small planta-
tions or collections, as it grows in almost any soil or situa-
tion, takes but little room, and is always interesting. “In
the Scottish Highlands,” says Gilpin, “on some rocky
mountain covered with dark pines and waving birch, which
cast a solemn gloom on the lake below, a few Mountain
ashes joining in a clump and mixing with them, have a fine
effect. In summer the light green tint of their foliage, and
in autumn the glowing berries which hang clustering upon

‘them, contrast beautifully with the deeper green of the
pines: and if they are happily blended, and not in too large
a proportion, they add some of the most picturesque furni-
ture with which the sides of those rugged mountains are
invested.” We have seen the Mountain ash, here, display-
ing itself in great beauty, mingled with a group of hemlocks,
from among the deep green foliage of which, the coral

* Arboretum et Fruticetum, p. 918.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 229

berries of the former seemed to shoot out; their color
heightened by the dark back ground of evergreen
boughs.

The American Mountain ash (Pyrus Americana) is a
native of the mountains along the banks of the Hudson, and
other cold and elevated situations in the north of the United
States: on the Catskill we have seen some handsome speci-
mens near the Mountain House ; but generally it does not
grow in so comely a shape, or form so handsome a tree
as the foreign sort. In the general appearance of the leaves
and blossoms, however, it so nearly resembles the European
as to be thought merely a variety by some botanists. The
chief difference between them appears to be in the color
of the fruit, which on our native tree is copper colored or
dull purplish red. It may probably assume a handsome
shape when cultivated.

The Sorb or Service tree (Pyrus Sorbus) is an interest-
ing species of Pyrus, a native of Europe, which is sometimes
seen in our gardens, and deserves a place for its handsome
foliage and its clusters of fruit; which somewhat resemble
those of the Mountain ash, and are often eaten when in a
state of incipient decay. The leaves are coarser than those
of the Mountain ash, and the tree is larger, often attaining
the height of 50 or 60 feet in its native soil.

The White Beam (Pyrus Aria) is another foreign species,
also bearing bunches of handsome scarlet berries, and clus-
ters of white flowers. The leaves, however, are not pin-
nated, but simply serrated on the margin. It grows 30 feet
high, and as the foliage is dark green on the upper side, and
downy white beneath, it presents an effect greatly resem-
bling that of the Silver poplar in a slight breeze. Abroad,

230 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the timber is considered valuable; but here it is chiefly
planted to produce a pleasing variety among other trees, by
its peculiar foliage, and scarlet autumnal fruit.

All the foregoing trees grow naturally in the highest,
most exposed, and often almost barren situations. When,
however, a rapid growth is desired, they should be planted
in a more moist and genial soil. They are easily propagated
from the seed, and some of the sorts may be grafted on the
pear or hawthorn. The seeds, in all cases, should be sown

in autumn.

Tue Amantus Tree. Ailantus.
Nat. Ord. Xanthoxylacee. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Monecia.

Ailanto is the name of this tree in the Moluccas, and is
said to signify Tree of Heaven; an appellation probably
bestowed on account of the rapidity of its growth, and the
great height which it reaches in the East Indies, its native
country. When quite young it is not unlike a sumac in
appearance ; but the extreme rapidity of its growth and the
great size of its pinnated leaves, four or five feet long, soon
distinguish it from that shrub. During the first half dozen
years it outstrips almost any other deciduous tree in vigor
of growth, and we have measured leading stems which had
grown twelve or fifteen feet in a single season. In four or
five years, therefore, it forms quite a bulky head, but after
that period it advances more slowly, and in 20 years would
probably be overtopped by the poplar, the plane, or any
other fast growing tree. There are, as yet, no specimens
in this country more than 70 feet high ; but the trunk shoots

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 231

up in a fine column, and the head is massy and irregular in —
outline. In this country it is planted purely for ornament,
but we learn that in Europe its wood has been applied to
eabinet work; for which, from its close grain and bright
satin-like lustre, it is well adapted.* The male and female
flowers are borne on separate trees, and both sexes are now
common, especially in New York. The male forms the
finer ornamental tree, the female being rather low, and
spreading in its head.

In New York and Philadelphia, the Ailantus is more
generally known by the name of the Celestial tree, and is
much planted in the streets and public squares. For such
situations it is admirably adapted, as it will insinuate its
strong roots into the most meagre and barren soil, where
few other trees will grow, and soon produce an abundance
of foliage and fine shade. It appears also to be perfectly
free from insects; and the leaves, instead of dropping
slowly, and for a long time, fall off almost immediately
when frost commences.

The Ailantus is a picturesque tree, well adapted to
produce a good effect on the lawn, either singly or grouped ;
as its fine long foliage catches the light well, and contrasts
strikingly with that of the round-leaved trees. It has a
troublesome habit of producing suckers, however, which
must exclude it from every place but a heavy sward, where
the surface of the ground is never stirred by cultivation.

The branches of this tree are entirely destitute of the
small spray so common on most’ forest trees, and have a
singularly naked look in winter, well calculated to fix the
attention of the spectator at that dreary season.

* Annales de la Societé d’Horticulture.

232 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The largest Ailantus trees in America are growing
in Rhode Island, where it was introduced from China,
under the name of the Tillou tree. It has since been
rapidly propagated by suckers, and is now one of the
commonest ornamental trees sold in the nurseries. The
finest trees, however, are those raised from seed.

Tue Kentucky Corres Tree. Gymnocladus.
Nat. Ord. Leguminose. Lin. Syst. Diccia, Decandria.

This unique tree is found in the western part of the
State of New York, and as far north as Montreal, in
Canada. But it is seen in the greatest perfection, in the
fertile bottoms of Kentucky and Tennessee. Sixty feet is
the usual height of the Coffee tree in those soils; and
judging from specimens growing under our inspection, it
will scarcely fall short of that altitude, in well cultivated
situations, anywhere in the middle states.

When in full foliage, this is a very beautiful tree. The
whole leaf, doubly compound and composed of a great
number of bluish-green leaflets, is generally three feet long,

and of two-thirds that width on thrifty trees; and the
" whole foliage hangs in a well-rounded mass, that would
look almost too heavy, were it not lightened in effect by
the loose, tufted appearance of each individual leaf. The
flowers, which are white, are borne in Joose spikes, in
the beginning of summer; and are succeeded by ample
brown pods, flat and somewhat curved, which contain six
or seven large grey seeds, imbedded in a sweet pulpy
substance. As the genus is diccious, it is necessary that

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 233

both sexes of this tree should be growing near each other,
in order to produce seed.

When Kentucky was first settled by the adventurous
pioneers from the Atlantic States, who commenced their
career in the primeval wilderness, almost without the
necessaries of life, except as produced by them from the
fertile soil, they fancied that they had discovered a
substitute for coffee in the seeds of this tree, and
accordingly the name of Coffee tree was bestowed upon
it: but when a communication was established with the
seaports, they gladly relinquished their Kentucky beverage
for the more grateful flavor of the Indian plant ; and no
use is at present made of it in that manner. It has;
however, a fine, compact wood, highly useful in building or
cabinet-work.

The Kentucky Coffee tree is well entitled to a place in
every collection. In summer, its charming foliage and
agreeable flowers render it a highly beautiful lawn tree ;
and in winter, it is certainly one of the most novel trees,
in appearance, in our whole native sylva. Like the
Ailantus, it is entirely destitute of small spray, but it also
adds to this the additional singularity of thick, blunt,
terminal branches, without any perceptible buds. Alto-
gether it more resembles a dry, dead, and withered
combination of sticks, than a living and thrifty tree.
Although this would be highly monotonous and displeasing,
were it the common appearance of our deciduous trees
in winter ; yet, as it is not so, but a rare and very unique
exception to the usual beautiful diversity of spray and
ramification, it is highly interesting to place such a tree as
the present in the neighborhood of other full-sprayed

species, where the curiosity which it excites will add

234 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

greatly to its value as an interesting object at that period
of the year.*

$< —

[Fig. 38. The Kentucky Coffee Tree.]

The seeds vegetate freely, and the tree is usually
propagated in that manner. It prefers a rich, strong soil,
like most trees of the western states.

Tut Wittow Tree. Saliz.

Nat. Ord. Salicacee. Lin. Syst. Dicecia, Diandria.
A very large genus, comprising plants of almost every

* There are some very fine specimens upon the lawn at Dr. Hosack’s seat,
Hyde Park, N. Y., which have fruited for a number of years. See Fig. 38.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 235

stature, from minute shrubs of three or four inches in
height, to lofty and wide-spreading trees of fifty or sixty
feet.* They are generally remarkable for their narrow
leaves, and slender, round, and flexible branches.

There are few of these willows which are adapted to
add to the beauty of artificial scenery; but among them
are three or four trees, which, from their peculiar
character, deserve especial notice. These are the Weep-
ing, or Babylonian willow (Salix Babylonica), the White,
or Huntington willow (S. alba), the Golden willow
(S. vitellina), the Russell willow (8. Russelliana), and the
profuse Flowering willow (S. caprea).

The above are all foreign sorts, which, however (except
the last), have long ago been introduced, and are now
quite common in the United States. All of them except
the first, have an upright or wavy, spreading growth, and
form lofty trees, considerably valued abroad for their
timber. The White willow and the Russell willow are
very rapid in their growth, and have a pleasing light green
foliage. The Golden willow is remarkable for its bright
yellow bark, which renders it quite ornamental, even in
winter. It is a middle sized tree, and is often seen
growing along the road-sides in the eastern and middle
states. Saliz caprea is deserving a place in collections
for the beauty of its abundant blossoms at an early and
cheerless period in the spring. There are a number of
other species found growing in different parts of the
Union, which may perhaps possess sufficient interest to

recommend themselves to the planter.

* Dr. Barratt of Middletown, Conn., who has paid great attention to the
willow, enumerates 100 species, as growing in North America, either

indigenous or introduced.

236 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The chief, and indeed almost the only value of these
willows in Landscape Gardening, is to embellish low
grounds, streams of water, or margins of lakes. When
mingled with other trees, they often harmonize so badly
from their extremely different habits, foliage, and color,
that unless very sparingly introduced, they cannot fail to
have a bad effect. On the banks of streams, however,
they are extremely appropriate, hanging their slender
branches over the liquid element, and drawing genial

nourishment from the moistened soil.

« Le saule incliné sur la rive penchante,
Balangant mollement sa téte blanchissante.”

In the middle distance of a scene, also, where a stream
winds partially hidden, or which might otherwise wholly
escape the eye, these trees, if planted along its course,
connected as they are in our minds with watery soils, will
not fail to direct the attention and convey forcibly the
impression of a brook or river, winding its way beneath
their shade.

The Weeping willow, however, is at once one of the
most elegant, graceful, and interesting trees ; elegant in its
light and delicate waving foliage ; graceful in the soft
flowing lines formed by its drooping branches ; and
interesting by the melancholy, poetical, and scriptural
associations connected with it. Every one will call to
mind the captivity of the children of Israel, as connected
with this tree: “ By the waters of Babylon we sat down
and wept, O Zion! As for our harps, we hanged them
upon the willow trees:” Psalm exxxviil. And the gentle
sigh of the faintest breeze through its light foliage, still
recalls to the mind the plaintive murmur of those

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 237

abandoned harps, which one may fancy to have be-

queathed their last tones of music to its pensile branches.
Since that period, the willow appears to have been,

more or less, consecrated to a tender sentiment of grief,

“ Trailing low its boughs, to hide
The gleaming marble.”

To these offices of pensive melancholy, it appears to
be dedicated in almost all countries. The Chinese and
other Asiatic nations, and the Turks, as well as the
enlightened Europeans, universally plant it in their
cemeteries and last places of repose. A French writer
thus speaks of it in contrasting its merits for those
purposes, with the cypress. “The cypress was long
considered as the appropriate ornament of the cemetery ;
but its gloomy shade among the tombs, and its thick,
heavy foliage of the darkest green, inspire only depress-
ing thoughts, and present the image of death under its
most appalling form. The Weeping willow, on the
contrary, rather conveys a picture of grief for the loss
of the departed, than of the darkness of the grave. Its
light and elegant foliage flows like the dishevelled hair
and graceful drapery of a sculptured mourner over a
sepulchral urn; and conveys those soothing, though
softly melancholy reflections which have made one of our
poets exclaim, ‘There is a pleasure even in grief.’” *
On this passage, Loudon remarks: “ Notwithstanding the
preference thus given the willow, the shape of the cypress
conveying to a fanciful mind the idea of a flame pointing
upwards, has been supposed to afford an emblem of the
hope of immortality; it is still planted in many church-

* Poiteau, “nouveau du Hamel.’

238 _ LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

yards on the continent, and alluded to in the epitaphs,

under this light.” *
Abroad, the willow was in ancient days worn by

young girls, as a symbol of grief for one of their own sex

who died young :

“ Lay a garland on my hearse,
Of the dismal yew ;
Maidens, willow branches wear,
Say I died true.”

The poets often allude to the willow:

« A willow garland thou did’st send

Perfumed last day to me ;

Which did but only this portend,
I was forsook by thee.

Since so it is, I’ll tell thee what,
To-morrow thou shalt see

Me wear the willow, after that
To die upon the tree.” Herrick.

In landscapes, the Weeping willow is peculiarly express-
ive of grace and softness. Although a highly beautiful
tree, great care must be used in its introduction, to
preserve the harmony and propriety of the whole; as
nothing could be more strikingly inappropriate than to
intermix it frequently with trees expressive of dignity or
majesty, as the oak, etc.; where the violent contrast
exhibited in the near proximity of the two opposite forms,
could only produce discord. The favorite place, where
it is most true to nature and itself, is near water,
where
“it dips
Its pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.” CowPeEr.

* Arb. Brit.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 239

There, when properly introduced, not in too great abun-
dance, hanging over some rustic bridge, or cool jutting
spring, and supported, and brought into harmony with
surrounding vegetation by such other graceful and light-
sprayed trees as the Birch and Weeping elm, its effect is
often surpassingly beautiful and appropriate. There it is
one of the first in the vernal season to burst its buds, and
mirror its soft green foliage in the flood beneath, and one
of the last in autumn to yield its leafy vesture to the
chilling frosts, or fitful gusts of approaching winter.

We consider the Weeping willow ill calculated for a
place near a mansion which has any claims to size, mag-
nificence, or architectural beauty; as it does not in any
way contribute by its form or outline to add to or
strengthen such characteristics in a building. The only
place where it can be happily situated in this way, is in
the case of very humble or inconspicuous cottages, which
we have seen much ornamented by being completely
hidden, as it were, beneath the soft veil of its streaming
foliage.

There is a very singular variety of the Weeping willow
cultivated in our gardens, under the name of the Ringlet
willow ; which is so remarkable in the form of its foliage,
and so different from all other trees, that it is well worth a
place as a curiosity. Each leaf is curled round like a ring
or hoop, and the appearance of a branch in full foliage is
not unlike a thinly curled ringlet; whence its common
name. It forms a neat, middle-sized tree, with drooping
branches, though hardly so pendent as the Weeping
willow.

The uses of the willow are extremely numerous. Abroad
it is extensively cultivated in coppices, for timber and fuel,

240 . LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

for hoops, ties, etc. ; and we are informed, that in the north-
ern parts of Europe, and throughout the Russian Empire,
the twigs are employed in manufacturing domestic uten-
sils, harness, cables, and even for the houses of the pea-
santry themselves. From the fibres of the bark, it is said
that a durable cloth is woven by the Tartars; and the
bark is used for tanning in various parts of the eastern
continent.

But by far the most extensive use to which this plant is
applied, is in the manufacture of baskets. From the
earliest periods it has been devoted to this purpose, and
large plantations, or osier-fields, as they are called, are
devoted to the culture of particular kinds for this purpose,
both in Europe and America. The common Basket willow,
an European species (S. viminalis), is the sort usually
grown for this purpose, but several others are also employed.
For the culture of the basket willows, a deep, moist, though
not inundated soil is necessary ; such as is generally found
on the margins of small streams, or lowlands. “Ropes
and baskets made from willow twigs, were probably among
the very earliest manufactures, in countries where these
trees abound. The Romans used the twigs for binding
their vines, and tying their reeds in bundles, and made all
sorts of baskets of them. A crop of willows was consi-
dered so valuable in the time of Cato, that he ranks the
Salictum, or willow field, next in value to the vineyard
and the garden. (Art. Salix. Arb. Brit.)

Among us, the European Basket willow is extensively
cultivated, and very large plantations are to be seen in the
low grounds of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The wood
of some of the tree willows, and particularly that of the

Yellow willow, and the Shining willow (S. lucida), is

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREFS. 241

greatly used in making charcoal for the manufacture of
gunpowder.

It is almost unnecessary to say that all the willows grow
readily from slips or truncheons planted in the ground. So
tenacious of life are they, that examples are known where
small trees have been taken up and completely inverted, by
planting the branches and leaving the roots exposed, which
have nevertheless thrown out new roots from the former
tops, and the roots becoming branches, the tree grew again

with its ordinary vigor.

Tue Sassarras Tree. Laurus.
Nat. Ord. Lauracee. Lin. Syst. Enneandria, Monogynia.

The Sassafras is a neat tree of the middle size, belonging
to the same family as the European laurel or Sweet bay ;
it is found, more or less plentifully, through the whole
territory of the United States. In favorable soils, along
the banks of the Hudson, it often grows to 40 or 50 feet in
height; but in the woods it seldom reaches that altitude.
The flowers are yellow, and appear in small clusters in
May, and the fruit is a small, deep blue berry, seated on a
red footstalk or cup. The bark of the wood and roots has
an agreeable smell and taste, and is a favorite ingredient,
with the branches of the spruce, in the small beer made by
the country people. Medicinally, it is considered anti-
scorbutic and sudorific; and is thought efficacious in
purifying the blood. It was formerly in great repute with
practitioners abroad, and large quantities of the bark of
the roots were shipped to England ; but the demand has

of late greatly decreased.
16

242 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The Sassafras is a very agreeable tree to the eye, decked
as it is with its glossy, deep green, oval, or three-lobed
leaves. When fully grown, it is also quite picturesque for
a tree of so moderate a size ; as its branches generally have
an irregular, somewhat twisted look, and the head is
partially flattened, and considerably varied in outline.
After ten years of age, this tree always looks older than it
really is, from its rough, deeply cracked, grey bark, and
rather crooked stem. It often appears extremely well on
the borders of a plantation, and mixes well with almost any
of the heavier deciduous trees. As it is by no means so
common a tree as many of those already noticed, it is gene-
rally the more valued, and may frequently be seen growing
along the edges of cultivated fields and pastures, appearing
to thrive well in any good mellow soil.

Tue Catatrea Tree. Catalpa.
Nat. Ord. Bignoniacee. Lin. Syst. Diandria, Monogynia.

A native of nearly all the states south and west of Vir-
ginia, this tree has become naturalized also throughout the
middle and eastern sections of the Union, where it is
generally planted for ornament.

In Carolina it is called the Catawba tree, after the
Catawba Indians, a tribe that formerly inhabited that
country; and it is probable that the softer epithet now
generally bestowed upon it in the north, is only a corrup-
tion of that original name.

The leaves of this tree are very large, often measuring

six or seven inches broad; they are heart-shaped in form,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 243

smooth, and pale green on the upper side, slightly downy
beneath. The blossoms are extremely beautiful, hanging,
like those of the Horse-chestnut, in massy clusters beyond
the outer surface of the foliage. The color is a pure and
delicate white, and the inner part of the corolla is
delicately sprinkled over with violet, or reddish and yellow
spots; indeed, the individual beauty of the flowers is so
great when viewed closely, that one almost regrets that
they should be elevated on the branches of a large forest
tree. When these fall, they are succeeded by bean-like
capsules or seed-vessels, which grow ten or twelve inches
long, become brown, and hang pendent upon the branches
during the greater part of the winter.

The Catalpa never, or rarely, takes a symmetrical form
when growing up; but generally forms a wide-spreading
head, forty or fifty feet in diameter. Its large and abundant
foliage affords a copious shade, and its growth is quite
rapid, soon forming a large and bulky tree. In ornamental
plantations it is much valued on account of its superb and
showy flowers, and is therefore deserving a place in every
lawn. It is generally seen to best advantage when
standing alone, but it may also be mingled with other large
round-leaved trees, as the basswood, ete., when it produces
avery pleasing effect. The branches are rather brittle,
like those of the locust, and are therefore somewhat liable
to be broken by the wind. Accustomed to a warmer
climate, the leaves expand late in the spring, and wither
hastily when frost approaches; but the soft tint of their
luxuriant vegetation is very grateful to the eye, and it
appears to be uninjured by the hottest rays of summer.
North of this place the Catalpa is rather too tender for
exposed situations.

244 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

We have seen the Catalpa employed to great advantage
in fixing and holding up the loose soil of river banks,
where, if planted, it will soon insinuate its strong roots,
and retain the soil firmly. In Ohio, experiments have
been made with the timber for the posts used in fencing ;
and it is stated on good authority that it is but little
inferior, when well seasoned, to that of the locust in
durability.

Michaux mentions that he has been assured that the
honey collected from the flowers is poisonous ; but this we
are inclined to doubt ; or at least we have witnessed no ill
effects from planting it in abundance in the middle States,
in those neighborhoods where bees are kept in considerable
numbers.

The Catalpa is very easily propagated from seeds sown
in any light soil; and the growth of the young plants is
extremely rapid. C. syringafolia is the only species.

Tue Persimon Tres. Diospyros.
Nat. Ord. Ebenacez. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Diccia.

The Highlands of the Hudson, and about the same
latitude on the Connecticut, may be considered the
northern limits of this small tree. It generally forms a
spreading loose head, of some twenty or thirty feet high,
in good soils in the middle states; but we have seen a
specimen of nearly eighty feet, in the old Bartram Garden
at Philadelphia ; and fifty feet is probably the average
growth on deep fertile lands in the southern states.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 245

The Persimon bears a small, round, dull red fruit, about
an inch in diameter, containing six or seven stones ; it is
insufferably austere and bitter, until the autumnal frosts have
mellowed it and lessened its harshness, when it becomes
quite palatable. Considerable quantities of the fruit are
annually brought into New York market and its vicinity,
from New Jersey, and sold: the produce is very abundant,
a single tree often yielding several bushels. A strong
brandy has been distilled from them ; and in the south they
are said to enter into the composition of the country beer.
For the latter purpose they are pounded up with bran, dried,
and kept for use till wanted.

The foliage of the Persimon is handsome; the leaves
being four or five inches long, simple, oblong, dark green,
and glossy, like those of the orange. The blossoms are
green and inconspicuous.

The Persimon has no importance as a tree to recommend
it; but it may be admitted in all good collections for its
pleasing shining foliage, and the variety which its singular
fruit adds to the productions of a complete country resi-
dence. The common sort (D. Virginiana) grows readily
from the seed.

There is an European Species (Dyosporus Lotus), with
yellow fruit about the size of a cherry, rather less palatable
than our native kind. The specimens of this tree, which
we have imported, appear too tender to bear our winters
unprotected, so that it will probably not prove hardy in the
northern states.

246 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tae Prererince Tree. Nyssa.
Nat. Ord. Santalaceex. Lin. Syst. Polygamia, Dicecia.

The Peperidge, Tupelo, or sour gum tree, as it is called
in various parts of the Union, grows to a moderate size,
and is generally found in moist situations, though we have
seen it in New York State, thriving very well in dry upland
soils. The diameter of the trunk is seldom more than
eighteen inches, and the general height is about forty or
fifty feet. The flowers are scarcely perceptible, but the
fruit borne in pairs, is about the size of a pea, deep blue,
and ripens in October.

The leaves are oval, smooth, and have a beautiful gloss
on their upper surface. The branches diverge from the
main trunk almost horizontally, and sometimes even bend
downwards like those of some of the Pine family, which
gives the tree a very marked and picturesque character.

The Peperidge when of moderate size is not difficult to
transplant, and we consider it a very fine tree, both on
account of its beautiful, dark green, and lustrous foliage in
summer, and the brilliant fiery color which it takes when
the frost touches it in autumn. In this respect it is fully
equal in point of beauty to that of the Liquidambar or Sweet
gum, and the maples which we have already described ;
and so fine a feature do we consider this autumnal beauty
of foliage that we would by all means advise the introduc-
tion of such trees as the Peperidge into the landscape for
that reason alone, were it not also valuable for its peculiar
form and polished leaves in summer.

Besides the Peperidge there are three other Nyssas,
natives of this continent, viz. the Black gum (NV. Sylvatica),

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES, 247

a tree of greater dimensions, and larger, more elongated
leaves, whose northern boundary is the neighborhood of
Philadelphia; the Large Tupelo (IV. grandidentata), a
tree of the largest size, with large, coarsely toothed
foliage, and a large blue fruit, three-fourths of an inch
long, which is sometimes called the wild olive; and the
sour Tupelo (N. capitata), with long, smooth, laurel-like
leaves, and light red, oval fruit, called the Wild Lime,
from its abounding in a strong acid, resembling that of
the latter fruit. Both the latter trees are natives of the
southern states, and are little known north of Philadelphia.

The wood of all the foregoing trees is remarkable for
the peculiar arrangement of its fibres; which, instead of
running directly through the stem in parallel lines, are
curiously twisted and interwoven together. Owing to
this circumstance it is extremely difficult to split, and is
therefore often used in the manufacture of wooden bowls,
trays, etc. That of the Peperidge is also preferred for
the same reason, and for its toughness, by the wheel-
wrights, in the construction of the naves of wheels, and
for other similar purposes.

Michaux remarks that he is unable to give any reason
why the names of Sour gum, Black gum, etc., have been
bestowed upon these trees, as they spontaneously exude no
sap or fluid which could give rise to such an appellation.
We suspect that the term has arisen from a comparison
of the autumnal tints of these trees belonging to the genus
Nyssa, with those of the Sweet gum or Liquidambar,
which, at a short distance, they so much resemble in the
early autumn.

248 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tue Tuorn Tree. Crategus.
Nat. Ord. Rosacee. Lin. Syst. Icosandria, Di-pentagynia.

A tree of the smallest size; but though many of the
sorts attain only the stature of ordinary shrubs, yet some
of our native species, as well as the English Hawthorn
(C. oxycantha), when standing alone, will form neat,
spreading-topped trees, of twenty or thirty feet in height.

Although the thorn is not generally viewed among us
as a plant at all conducive to the beauty of scenery, yet
we are induced to mention it here, and to enforce its
claims in that point of view, as they appear to us highly
entitled to consideration. First, the foliage—deep green,
shining, and often beautifully cut and diversified in form
—is prettily tufted and arranged upon the branches;
secondly, the snowy blossoms—often produced in such
quantities as to completely whiten the whole head of the
tree, and which in many sorts have a delightful perfume
—present a charming appearance in the early part of the
season ; and thirdly, the ruddy crimson or purple haws or
fruit, which give the whole plant a rich and glowing
appearance in and among our fine forests, open glades, or
wild thickets, in autumn. i

The most ornamental and the strongest growing
indigenous kinds are the Scarlet Thorn tree (C. coccinea),
and its varieties, the Washington Thorn (C. populifolia),
and the Cockspur Thorn (C. crus-galli) ; all of which, in
good soil, will grow to the height of twenty or thirty feet,
and can readily be transplanted from their native sites.

The English Hawthorn is not only a beautiful small

tree, but it is connected in our minds with all the elegant,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 249

poetic, and legendary associations which belong to it in
England ; for scarcely any tree is richer in such than
this. With the floral games of May, this plant, from its
blooming at that period, and being the favorite of the
season, has become so identified, that the blossoms are
known in many parts of Britain chiefly by that name.
Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, they were dedi-
cated to Flora, whose festival began on the first of that
month ; and in the olden times of merry England, the
May-pole, its top decked with the gayest garlands of these
blossoms, was raised amid the shouts of the young and
old assembled to celebrate this happy rustic festival.
Chaucer alludes to the custom, and describes the hawthorn
thus :

Marke the faire blooming of the Hawthorne tree,
Which finely cloathed in a robe of white,
Fills full the wanton eye with May’s delight.
Court or Love.

And Herrick has left us the following lines to “Corrina
going a Maying :”

“Come, my Corrina, come ; and coming marke
How eche field turns a street, eche street a park
Made green, and trimmed with trees ; see how
Devotion gives eche house a bough
Or branch ; eche porch, eche doore ere this,
An arke, a tabernacle is,

Made up of Hawthome, neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.”

The following lines descriptive of the English species,
we extract from the “ Romance of Nature.”

“Come let us rest this hawthorn tree beneath,
And breathe its luscious fragrance as it flies,

250 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

And watch the tiny petals as they fall,
Cireling and winnowing down our sylvan hall.”

The berries, or haws, as they are called, have a very rich
and. coral-like look when the tree, standing alone, is com-
pletely covered with them in October. There are some
elegant varieties of this species, which highly deserve cul-
tivation for the beauty of their flowers and foliage. Among
them we may particularly notice the Double White, with
beautiful blossoms like small white roses; the Pink and the
Scarlet flowering, both single and double, and the Varie-
gated-leaved hawthorn, all elegant trees; as well as the
Weeping hawthorn, a rarer variety, with pendulous
branches.

The Hawthorn is most agreeable to the eye in compo-
sition when it forms the undergrowth or thicket, peeping
out in all its green freshness, gay blossoms, or bright fruit,
from beneath and between the groups and masses of trees ;
where, mingled with the hazel, etc., it gives a pleasing
intricacy to the whole mass of foliage. But the different
species display themselves to most advantage, and grow
also to a finer size, when planted singly, or two or three
together, along the walks leading through the different parts
of the pleasure-ground or shrubbery.

Tue Maenoura Tree. Magnolia.
Nat. Ord. Magnoliacee. Lin. Syst. Polyandria, Polygynia.

The North American trees composing the genus Magnolia
are certainly among the most splendid productions of the

forests in any temperate climate; and when we consider

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 251

the size and fragrance of their blossoms, or the beauty of
their large and noble foliage, we may be allowed to doubt
whether there is a more magnificent and showy genus of
deciduous trees in the world. With the exception of a few
shrubs or smaller trees, natives of China and the mountains
of Central Asia, it belongs exclusively to this continent, as
no individuals of this order are indigenous to Europe or
Africa. The American species attracted the attention of
the first botanists who came over to examine the riches of
our native flora, and were transplanted to the gardens
of England and France more than a hundred years ago,
where they are still valued as the finest hardy trees of that
hemisphere.

The Large Evergreen Magnolia (M. grandiflora), or
Big Laurel, as it is sometimes called, is peculiarly indige-
nous to that portion of our country south of North Carolina,
where its stately trunk, often seventy feet in height, and
superb pyramid of deep green foliage, render it one of the
loveliest and most majestic of trees. The leaves, which
are evergreen, and somewhat resemble those of the laurel
in form, are generally six or eight inches in length, thick in
texture and brilliantly polished on the upper surface. The
highly fragrant flowers are composed of about six petals,
opening in a wide cup-like form, of the most snowy white-
ness of color. Scattered among the rich foliage, their
effect is exquisitely beautiful. The seeds are borne in an
oval, cone-like carpel or seed-vessel, composed of a number
of cells which split longitudinally, when the stony seed,
covered with a bright red pulp, drops out. There are
several varieties, which have been raised from the seed of
this species abroad ; the most beautiful is the Exmouth
Magnolia, with fine foliage, rusty beneath ; it produces its

252 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

flowers much earlier and more abundantly than the original
sort.

We regret that this tree is too tender to bear the open
air north of Philadelphia, as it is one of the choicest
evergreens. At the nurseries of the Messrs. Landreth,
and at the Bartram Botanic Garden of Col. Carr, near that
city, some good specimens of this Magnolia and its
varieties are growing thriftily ; but in the State of New
York, and at the east, it can only be considered a green-
house plant.

The Cucumber Magnolia (C. acuminata), (so called
from the appearance of the young fruit, which is not unlike
a green cucumber) takes the same place in the north, in
point of majesty and elevation, that the Big Laurel
occupies in the south. Its northern limit is Lake Erie;
and it abounds along the whole range of the Alleghanies to
the southward, in rich mountain acclivities, and moist
sheltered valleys. There it often measures three or four
feet in diameter, and eighty in height. The leaves, which
are deciduous, like those of all the Magnolias except the M.
grandiflora, are also about six inches long and four broad,
acuminate at the point, of a bluish green on the upper
surface. The flowers are six inches in diameter, of a pale
yellow, much like those of the Tulip tree, and slightly
fragrant. The fruit is about three inches long, and
cylindrical in shape. Most of the inhabitants of the
country bordering on the Alleghanies, says Michaux,
gather these cones about midsummer, when they are half
ripe, and steep them in whiskey ; the liquor produced, they
take as an antidote against the fevers prevalent in those
districts,

The Umbrella Magnolia (M. tripetala), though found

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 253

sometimes in the northwest of New York, is rare there,
and abounds most in the south and west. It is a smaller
tree than the preceding kinds, rarely growing more than
thirty feet high. The. leaves on the terminal shoots are
disposed three or four in a tuft, which has given rise to the
name of Umbrella tree. They are of fine size, eighteen
inches or two feet long, and seven or eight broad, oval,
pointed at both ends ; the flowers are also large, white, and
numerous; and the conical fruit-vessel containing the
seeds, assumes a beautiful rose-color in autumn. From its
fine tufted foliage, and rapid growth, this is one of the most
desirable species for our pleasure-grounds.

The Large-leaved Magnolia (M. macrophylla) is the
rarest of the genus in our forests, being only found as yet
in North Carolina. The leaves grow to an enormous size
when the tree is young, often measuring three feet long,
and nine or ten inches broad. They are oblong, oval, and
heart-shaped at the base. The flowers are also immense,
opening of the size of a hat-crown, and diffusing a most
agreeable odor. The tree attains only a secondary size,
and is distinguished in winter by the whiteness of its bark,
compared with the others. It is rather tender north of
New York.

The Heart-leaved Magnolia (M. cordata) is a beautiful
southern species, distinguished by its nearly round, heart-
shaped foliage, and its yellow flowers about four inches in
diameter. It blooms in the gardens very young, and very
abundantly, often producing two crops in a season.

Magnolia auriculata grows about forty feet high, and
is also found near the southern Alleghany range of
mountains. The leaves are light green, eight or nine
inches long, widest at the top, and narrower towards the

254 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

base, where they are rounded into lobes. The flowers are
not so fine as those of the preceding kinds, but still are
handsome, pale greenish white, and about four inches in
diameter.

Besides these, there is a smaller American Magnolia,
which is the only sort that in the middle or eastern
sections of the Union grows within 150 miles of the sea-
shore. This is the Magnolia of the swamps of New
Jersey and the South (M. glauca), of which so many
fragrant and beautiful bouquets are gathered in the season
of its inflorescence, brought to New York and Philadel-
phia, and exposed for sale in the markets. It is rather a
large bush, than a tree; with shining, green, laurel-like
leaves, four or five inches long, somewhat mealy or
glaucous beneath. The blossoms, about three inches
broad, are snowy white, and so fragrant that where they
abound in the swamps, their perfume is often perceptible
for the distance of a quarter of a mile.

The foreign sorts introduced into our gardens from
China, are the Chinese purple (M. purpurea), which
produces an abundance of large delicate purple blossoms
early in the season; the Yulan or Chinese White Magno-
lia (M. conspicua), a most abundant bloomer, bearing
beautiful white, fragrant flowers in April, before the leaves
appear ; and Soulange’s Magnolia (M. Soulangiana), a
hybrid between the two foregoing, with large flowers
delicately tinted with white and purple. These succeed
well in sheltered situations, in our pleasure-grounds, and
add greatly to their beauty early in the season. Grafted
on the cucumber tree, they form large and vigorous trees
of great beauty.

The Magnolia, in order to thrive well, requires a deep,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 255

rich soil; which in nearly all cases, to secure their
luxuriance, should be improved by adding thereto some
leaf mould or decayed vegetable matter from the woods.
When transplanted from the nursery, they should be
preferred of small or only moderate size, as their succulent
roots are easily injured, and they recover slowly when
large. Most of them may be propagated from seed ; but
they flower sooner, grow more vigorously, and are much
hardier when grafted upon young stocks of the Cucumber
Magnolia. This we have found to be particularly the
case with the Chinese species and varieties.

All these trees are such superbly beautiful objects upon
a lawn in their rich summer garniture of luxuriant foliage,
and large odoriferous flowers, that they need no further
recommendation from us to insure their regard and
admiration from all persons who have room for their
culture. If possible, situations somewhat sheltered either
by buildings or other trees, should be chosen for all the
species, except the Cucumber Magnolia, which thrives
well in almost any aspect not directly open to violent

gales of wind.

Tue Wuire-woop, or Tuuie Tree. Liriodendron.
Nat. Ord. Magnoliacee. Lin. Syst. Polyandria, Polygynia.

The Tulip tree belongs to the same natural order as the
Magnolias, and is not inferior to most of the latter in all
that entitles them to rank among our very finest forest
trees. 4

The taller Magnolias, as we have already remarked, do

256 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

not grow naturally within 100 or 150 miles of the sea-
coast ; and the Tulip tree may be considered as in some
measure supplying their place in the middle Atlantic
states. West of the Connecticut river, and south of the
sources of the Hudson, this fine tree may be often seen
reaching in warm and deep alluvial soils 80 or 90 feet in
height. But in the western states, where indeed the
growth of forest trees is astonishingly vigorous, this tree
far exceeds that altitude. The elder Michaux mentions
several which he saw in Kentucky, that were fifteen and
sixteen feet in girth; and his son confirms the measure-
ment of one, three miles and a half from Louisville, which,
at five feet from the ground, was found to be twenty-two
feet and six inches in circumference, with a corresponding
elevation of 130 feet.

The foliage is rich and glossy, and has a very pecular
form; being cut off, as it were, at the extremity, and
slightly notched and divided into two-sided lobes. The
breadth of the leaves is six or eight inches. The flowers,
which are shaped like a large tulip, are composed of six
thick yellow petals, mottled on the inner surface with red
and green. They are borne singly on the terminal shoots,
have a pleasant, slight perfume, and are very showy.
The seed-vessel, which ripens in October,:is formed of a
number of scales surrounding the central axis in the form
of acone. It is remarkable that young trees under 30 or
35 feet high, seldom or never perfect their seeds.

Whoever has once seen the Tulip tree in a situation
where the soil was favorable to its free growth, can
never forget it. With a clean trunk, straight as a
column, for 40 or 50 feet, surmounted by a fine, ample

summit of rich green foliage, it is, in our estimation,

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 257

decidedly the most stately tree in North America.
When standing alone, and encouraged in its lateral
growth, it will indeed often produce a lower head, but
its tendency is to rise, and it only exhibits itself in all
its stateliness and majesty when, supported on such a
noble columnar trunk, it towers far above the heads of
its neighbors of the park or forest. Even when at its
loftiest elevation, its large specious blossoms, which,
from their form, one of our poets has likened to the
chalice ;

Through the verdant maze

The Tulip tree
Its golden chalice oft triumphantly displays.
PIcKERING.

jut out from amid the tufted canopy in the month of June,
and glow in richness and beauty. While the tree is less
than a foot in diameter, the stem is extremely smooth, and
it has almost always a refined and finished appearance.
For the lawn or park, we conceive the Tulip tree
eminently adapted: its tall upright stem, and handsome
summit, contrasting nobly with the spreading forms of most
deciduous trees. It should generally stand alone, or near
the border of a mass of trees, where it may fully display
itself to the eye, and exhibit all its charms from the root
to the very summit; for no tree of the same grandeur and
magnitude is so truly beautiful and graceful in every
portion of its trunk and branches. Where there is a taste
for avenues, the Tulip tree ought by all means to be
employed, as it makes a most magnificent overarching
canopy of verdure, supported on trunks almost archi-
tectural in their symmetry. The leaves also, from their

bitterness, are but little liable to the attacks of any insect,
17

258 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

This tree was introduced into England about 1668 ; and
is now to be found in almost every gentleman’s park on the
Continent of Europe, so highly is it esteemed as an
ornamental tree of the first class. We hope that the fine
native specimens yet standing, here and there, in farm lands
along our river banks, may be sacredly preserved from
the barbarous infliction of the axe, which formerly
despoiled without mercy so many of the majestic denizens
of our native forests.

In the western states, where this tree abounds, it is much
used in building and carpentry. The timber is light and
yellow, and the tree is commonly called the Yellow Poplar
in those districts, from some fancied resemblance in the
wood, though it is much heavier and more durable than
that of the poplar.

When exposed to the weather, the wood is lable to
warp, but as it is fine grained, light, and easily worked, it is
extensively employed for the panels of coaches, doors,
cabinet-work, and wainscots. The Indians who once
inhabited these regions, hollowed out the trunks, and made
their canoes of them. There are two sorts of timber
known ; viz. the Yellow and the White Poplar, or Tulip
tree. These, however, it is well known are the same
species (L. tulipifera) ; but the variation is- brought about
by the soil, which if dry, gravelly, and elevated, produces
the white, and if rich, deep, and rather moist, the yellow
timber.

It is rather difficult to transplant the Tulip tree when it
has attained much size, unless the roots have undergone
preparation, as will hereafter be mentioned ; but it is easily
propagated from seed, or obtained from the nurseries, and

the growth is then strong and rapid.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 259

Tue Docgwoon Trer. Cornus.
Nat. Ord. Cormacee. Lin. Syst. Tetrandria, Monogynia.

There are a number of small shrubs that belong to this
genus, but the common Dogwood (Cornus florida) is the
only species which has any claims to rank as a tree. In
the middle states, where it abounds, as well as in most
other parts of the Union, the maximum height is thirty-
five feet, while its ordinary elevation is about twenty feet.

The Dogwood is quite a picturesque small tree, and owes
its interest chiefly to the beauty of its numerous blossoms
and fruit. The leaves are oval, about three inches long,
dark green above, and paler below. In the beginning of
May, while the foliage is beginning to expand rapidly, and
before the tree is in full leaf, the flowers unfold, and
present a beautiful spectacle, often covering the whole tree
with their snowy garniture. The principal beauty of
these consists in the involucrum or calyx, which, instead
of being green, as is commonly the case, in the Dogwood
takes a white or pale blue tint. The true flowers may be
seen collected in little clusters, and are, individually, quite
small, though surrounded by the involucrum, which
produces all the effect of a fine white blossom.

In the early part of the season, the Dogwood is one of
the gayest ornaments of our native woods. It is seen at
that time to great advantage in sailing up the Hudson
river. There, in the abrupt Highlands, which rise boldly
many hundred feet above the level of the river, patches of
the Dogwood in full bloom gleam forth in snowy whiteness
from among the tender green of the surrounding young
foliage, and ihe gloomier shades of the dark evergreens,

260 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

which clothe with a rich verdure the rocks and precipices
that overhang the moving flood below.

The berries which succeed these blossoms become quite
red and brilliant in autumn ; and, as they are plentifully
borne in little clusters, they make quite a display. When
the sharp frosts have lessened their bitterness, they are the
food of the robin, which, at that late season, eats them
greedily.

The foliage in autumn is also highly beautiful, and must
be considered as contributing to the charms of this tree.
The color it assumes is a deep lake-red; and it is at that
season as easily known at a distance by its fine coloring,
as the Maple, the Liquidambar, and the Nyssa, of which
we have already spoken. Taking into consideration all
these ornamental qualities, and also the fact that it is every
day becoming scarcer in our native wilds, we think the
Dogwood tree should fairly come under the protection of
the picturesque planter, and well deserves a place in the
pleasure-ground and shrubbery.

The wood is close-grained, hard, and heavy, and takes
a good polish. It is too small to enter into general use, but
is often employed for the lesser utensils of the farm. The
bark has been very successfully employed by physicians in
Philadelphia, and elsewhere, and is found to possess nearly
the same properties as the Peruvian bark. Bigelow states
in his American Botany, that its use in fevers has been
known and practised in many sections of the Union by the
country people, for more than fifty years.

Besides this native species there is an European
dogwood (Cornus mascula), commonly called the Cornelian
cherry, which is now planted in many of our gardens, and
grows to the height of twenty or thirty feet. The small

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 261

yellow flowers come out close to the branches in March or
April, and the whole tree is quite handsome in autumn,
from the size and color of its fine oval scarlet berries.
These are as large as a small cherry, transparent, and hang
for a long time upon the tree. The leaves are much like
those of the common Dogwood. Although the blossoms
are produced when the plant is quite a bush, yet it must
attain some age before the fruit sets. Altogether, the
Cornelian cherry is one of the most desirable of small
trees.

Tue Sauisspurra, or Ginko Tree.
Nat. Ord. Taxacee. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Polyandria.

This fine exotic tree, which appears to be perfectly hardy
in this climate, is one of the most singular in its foliage that
has ever come under our observation. The leaves are
wedge-shaped, or somewhat triangular, attached to the
petioles at one of the angles, and pale yellowish green in
color; the ribs or veins, instead of diverging from the
central mid-rib of the leaf, as is commonly the case in
dicotyledonous plants, are all parallel ; in short, they almost
exactly resemble (except in being three or four times as
large) those of the beautiful Maiden hair fern (Adiantum)
common in our woods : being thickened at the edges and
notched on the margin in a similar manner. The male
flowers are yellow, sessile catkins ; the female is seated in a
curious kind of cup, formed by the enlargement of the sum-
mit of the peduncle. The fruit is a drupe, about an inch
in length, containing a nut, which, according to Dr. Abel,
is almost always to be seen for sale in the markets of China

262 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and Japan, the native country of this tree. They are eaten
after having been roasted or boiled, and are considered
excellent.

The Salisburia was introduced into this country by that
zealous amateur of horticulture and botany, the late Mr.
Hamilton, of Woodlands, near Philadelphia, who brought
it from England in 1784, where it had been received from
Japan about thirty years previous. There are several of
these now growing at Woodlands ; and the largest measures
sixty feet in height, and three feet four inches in circum-
ference. The next largest specimen which we have seen
is now standing on the north side of that fine public square,
the Boston Common. It originally grew in the grounds
of Gardiner Green, Esq., of Boston ; but though of fine size,
it was, about three years since, carefully removed to its
present site, which proves its capability for bearing trans-
planting. Its measurement is forty feet in elevation, and
three in circumference. There is also a very handsome
tree in the grounds of Messrs. Landreth, Philadelphia, about
thirty-five feet high and very thrifty.

We have not learned that any of these trees have yet
borne their blossoms; at any rate none but male blossoms
have yet been produced. Abroad, the Salisburia has fruited
in the South of France, and young trees have been reared
from the nuts. _

The bark is somewhat soft and leathery, and on the
trunk and branches assumes a singular tawny yellow or
greyish color. The tree grows pretty rapidly, and forms
an exceedingly neat, loose, conical, or tapering head. The
timber is very solid and heavy ; and the tree is said to grow
to enormous size in its native country. Bunge, who accom-

panied the mission from Russia to Pekin, states that he saw

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 263

near a Pagoda, an immense Ginko tree, with a trunk
nearly forty feet in circumference, and still in full vigor of
vegetation.*

Although nearly related to the Pine tribe, and forming,
apparently, the connecting link between the conifere and
exogenous trees, yet, unlike the former tribe, the wood of
the tree is perfectly free from resin.

The Ginko tree is so great a botanical curiosity, and is
so singularly beautiful when clad with its fern-like foliage,
that it is strikingly adapted to add ornament and interest
to the pleasure ground. As the foliage is of that kind which
must be viewed near by to understand its peculiarity, and
as the form and outline of the tree are pleasing, and har-
monize well with buildings, we would recommend that it
be planted near the house, where its unique character can
be readily seen and appreciated.

Salisburia adiantifolia is the only species. In the
United States it appears to flourish best in a rich fertile soil,
rather dry than otherwise. South of Albany it is perfectly
hardy, and may therefore be considered a most valuable
acquisition to our catalogue of trees of the first class. It
has hitherto been propagated chiefly from layers; but cut-
tings of the preceding year’s growth, planted early in the
spring, in a fine sandy loam, and kept shaded and watered,
will also root without much difficulty. When the old trees
already mentioned (which have doubtless been raised from
seed) begin to blossom, plants reared from them by cuttings
or grafts, will, of course, produce blossoms and fruit much
more speedily than when reared from the nut.

* Bull. de la Soe. d’Agr. du départ. de Herault. Arb. Brit.

264 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tre American Cypress Tree. Tazxodium.
Nat. Ord. Conifere. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Monadelphia.

The Southern or Deciduous cypress (Taxodium disti-
chum)* is one of the most majestic, useful, and beautiful
trees of the southern part of North America. Naturally, it
is not found growing north of Maryland, or the south part
of Delaware, but below that boundary it becomes extremely
multiplied. The low grounds and alluvial soils subject to
inundations, are constantly covered with this tree ; and on
the banks of the Mississippi and other great western rivers,
for more than 600 miles from its mouth, those vast marshes,
caused by the periodical bursting and overflowing of their
banks, are filled with huge and almost endless growths of
this tree, called Cypress swamps. Beyond the boundaries
of the United States its geographical range extends to
Mexico; and Michaux estimates that it is found more or
less ‘abundantly, over a range of country more than 3000
miles in extent.

“In the swamps of the southern states and the Floridas,
on whose deep, miry soil a new layer of vegetable mould
is deposited every year by the floods, the Cypress attains
its utmost development. The largest stocks are 120 feet
in height, and from 25 to 40 feet in circumference above
the conical base, which at the surface of the earth is always
three or four times as large as the continued diameter of
the trunk ; in felling them, the negroes are obliged to raise
themselves upon scaffolds five or six feet from the ground.

The roots of the largest stocks, particularly of such as are

* Cupressus disticha.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 265

most exposed to inundation, are charged with conical pro-
tuberances, commonly from eighteen to twenty-four inches,
and sometimes four or five feet in thickness; these are
always hollow, smooth on the surface, and covered with a
reddish bark, like the roots, which they resemble also in the
softness of their wood; they exhibit no sign of vegetation,
and I have never succeeded in obtaining shoots by wound-
ing their surface and covering them with the earth. No
cause can be assigned for their existence : they are peculiar
to the Cypress, and begin to appear when it is twenty or
twenty-five feet in height; they are not made use of except
by the negroes for bee-hives.”

“The foliage is open, light, and of a fresh, agreeable
tint; each leaf is four or five inches long, and consists of
two parallel rows of leaflets, upon a common stem. The
leaflets are small, fine, and somewhat arching, with the
convex side outwards. In the autumn, they change from
a light green to a dull red, and are shed soon after.”

“The Cypress blooms in Carolina about the first of
February. The male and female flowers are borne
separately, by the same tree ; the first in flexible pendulous
aments, and the second in bunches, scarcely apparent.
The cones are about as large as the thumb, hard, round,
of an uneven surface, and stored with small, irregular,
ligneous seeds, containing a cylindrical kernel; they are
ripe in October, and retain their productive virtue for two
years.” *

Such is the account given of the Cypress in its native
soils. In the middle states it is planted only as an orna-
mental tree ; and while, in the South, its great abundance

*N. A. Sylva. ii. 332.

266 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

causes it to be neglected or disregarded as such, its rarity
here allows us fully to appreciate its beauty. North of the
43° of latitude it will not probably stand the winter without
protection; but south of that, it will attain a good size.
The finest planted specimen which we have seen, and one
which is probably equal in grandeur to almost any in their
native swamps, is growing in the Bartram Botanic Garden,
near Philadelphia. That garden was founded by the father
of American botanists, John Bartram, who explored the
southern and western territories, then vast wilds, at the
peril of his life, to furnish the savans and gardens of
Europe, with the productions of the new world, and who
commenced the living collection, now unequalled, of
American trees, in his own garden. In the lower part of
it stands the great Cypress, a tree of noble dimensions,
measuring at this time 130 feet in height and 25 in cireum-
ference. The tree was held by Bartram’s son, William,
while his father assisted in planting it, ninety-nine years
ago. The elder Bartram at the time expressed to his son,
the hope that the latter might live to see it a large tree.
Long before he died (not many years since), it had become
the prodigy of the garden, and great numbers from the
neighboring city annually visit it, to admire its vast size,
and recline beneath its ample shade.

The foliage of the Cypress is peculiar ; for while it has
aresemblance to the Hemlock, Yew, and other evergreen
trees, its cheerful, bright green tint, and loose airy tufts of
foliage, give it a character of great lightness and elegance.
In young trees, the form of the head is pyramidal or
pointed ; but when they become old, Michaux remarks, the
head becomes widely spread, and even depressed, thus

assuming a remarkably picturesque aspect. This is also

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 267

heightened by the deep furrows or channels in the trunk,
and the singular excrescences or knobs already described,
which, jutting above the surface of the ground, give a
strange ruggedness to the surface beneath the shadow of
its branches. A single Cypress standing alone, like that in
the Bartram Garden, is a grand object, uniting with the
expression of great elegance and lightness in its foliage,
that of magnificence, when we perceive its extraordinary
height, and huge stem and branches.

In composition, the Cypress produces the happiest effect,
when it is planted with the hemlock and firs, with which
it harmonizes well in the form of its foliage, while its
soft light green hue is beautifully opposed to the richer and
darker tints of those thickly-clad evergreens. Wherever
there is a moist and rather rich soil, the Cypress may be
advantageously planted: for although we have seen it
thrive well on a fertile dry loam, yet to attain all its lofty
proportions, it requires a soil where its thirsty roots can
drink in a sufficient supply of moisture. There its growth
is quite rapid ; and although it may, at first, suffer a little
from the cold at the north, in severe winters, yet it
continues its progress, and ultimately becomes a stately

tree.

In many parts of the southern states, the timber of this
tree, which is of excellent quality, is extensively used in
the construction of the framework and outer covering of
houses. It is also esteemed for shingles; and a large trade
has long been carried on from the south in Cypress
shingles. Posts made of this tree are found to be very
lasting ; and it is also employed for water-pipes, masts of
vessels, etc. In the north, its place is supplied by the Pine

268 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

timber, but in many southern cities, particularly New
Orleans, it will be found to enter into the composition of
almost every building.

In the nurseries, the Cypress is usually propagated from
the seed; and as it sends down strong roots, it should be
transplanted where it is finally to grow before it attains too
great a development.

The European Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), a
beautiful evergreen tree, shaped like a small Lombardy
poplar, which is the principal ornament of the churchyards
and cemeteries abroad, is unfortunately too tender to
endure the winter in any of the states north of Virginia.
South of that state, it may probably become naturalized,
and serve to add to the catalogue of beautiful indigenous
evergreen trees.

From its dark and sombre tint, and perpetual verdure, it
is peculiarly the emblem of grief:

« Binde you my brows with mourning Cyparesse,
And palish twigs of deadlier poplar tree,
Or if some sadder shades ye can devise,
Those sadder shades vaile my light-loathing eyes.”
Br. Hatt.

Tue Larcu Tree. Lariz.
Nat. Ord. Conifer. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Monadelphia.

The Larch is a resinous, cone-bearing tree, belonging
to the Pine family, but differing from that genus in the
annual shedding of its leaves like other deciduous trees.
In Europe it is a native of the coldest parts of the Alps
and Appenines ; and in America, is indigenous to the most

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 269

northern parts of the Union, and the Canadas. The leaves
are collected in little bunches, and the branches shoot out
from the main stem in a horizontal, or, more generally,
in a declining position.

(Fig. 39. The European Larch.]

For picturesque beauty, the Larch is almost unrivalled.
Unlike most other trees which must grow old, uncouth, and
misshapen before they can attain that expression, this is
singularly so, as soon almost as it begins to assume the
stature of a tree. It can never be called a beautiful tree,
so far as beauty consists in smooth outliues, a finely rounded
head, or gracefully drooping branches. But it has what is
perhaps more valuable, as being more rare,—the expression
of boldness and picturesqueness peculiar to itself, and

270 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

which it seems to have caught from the wild and rugged
chasms, rocks, and precipices of its native mountains.
There its irregular and spiry top and branches, harmonize
admirably with the abrupt variation of the surrounding
hills, and suit well with the gloomy grandeur of those
frowning heights.

Like all highly expressive and characteristic trees, much
more care is necessary in introducing the Larch into
artificial scenery judiciously, than round-headed trees. If
planted in abundance, it becomes monotonous, from the
similitude of its form in different specimens; it should
therefore be introduced sparingly, and always for some
special purpose. ‘I'his purpose may be either to give spirit
to a group of other trees, to strengthen the already pic-
turesque character of a scene, or to give life and variety
to one naturally tame and uninteresting. All these objects
can be fully effected by the Larch; and although it is by
far the most suited to harmonize with and strengthen the
expression of scenery naturally grand, or picturesque, with
which it most readily enters into combination; yet, in the
hands of taste, there can be no reason why so marked a
tree should not be employed in giving additional expression
to scenery of a tamer character.

The extremely rapid growth of this tree when planted
upon thin, barren, and dry soils, is another great merit
which it possesses as an ornamental tree ; and it is also a
necessary one to enable it to thrive well on those very
rocky and barren soils, where it is most in character with
the surrounding objects. It is highly valuable to produce
effect or shelter suddenly, on portions of an estate, too thin
or meagre in their soil to afford the sustenance necessary

to the growth of many other deciduous trees.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 271

The Larch is the great timber tree of Europe. Its wood
is remarkably heavy, strong, and durable, exceeding in all
those qualities the best English oak. To these, it is said to
add the peculiarity of being almost uninflammable, and
resisting the influence of heat for along time. Vitruvius
relates that when Ceesar attacked the castle of Larignum,
near the Alps, whose gate was commanded by a tower built
of this wood, from the top of which the besieged annoyed
him with their stones and darts, he commanded his army to
surround it with fagots, and set fire to the whole. When,
however, all the former were consumed, he was astonished
to find the Larch tower uninjured.* The wood is also
recommended for the decks of vessels and the masts of
ships, as it is little liable either to fly in splinters during an
engagement or to catch fire readily.

In Great Britain, immense plantations of this tree are
made with a view to profit; and although as yet nothing
like rearing trees for timber has been attempted here,
nevertheless the time must come when our attention will
necessarily be turned in this direction. When such is the
case, it is probable that the Larch will be found to be as
much an object of profit on this side of the Atlantic as on
the other. Indeed, we are much inclined to believe that
thousands of acres of our sterile soils in some districts,
might now be profitably planted with this tree.

In Scotland, the Larch was first introduced in the year
1738, when eleven plants were given to the Duke of Athol,
who afterwards, struck by the rapidity of their growth and
the excellency of their timber, planted thousands of acres
with them. As a specimen of what is done in timber

* Newton’s Vitruvius, p. 40.

Q72 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

growing abroad, and the peculiar capacity of the Larch for
thriving on poor soils, we shall make some extracts from
the account given of its growth in Scotland, by Sir T. D.
Lauder.

The late Duke of Athol planted large districts with this
tree, and thereby converted the heathy wastes into valuable
forests ; but this was not the whole of the improvement he
thus created. The Larch being a deciduous tree, sheds
upon the earth so great a shower of decayed spines every
succeeding autumn, that the annual addition which is made
to the soil cannot be less than from a third of an inch to
half an inch, according to the magnitude of the trees. This
we have had opportunities of proving by our remarks made
on the surfaces of newly cleaned pleasure walks. The
result of planting a moor with Larches then, is, that when
the trees have grown so much as to exclude the air and
moisture from the surface, the heath is soon exterminated ;
and the soil gradually increasing by the decomposition of
the leaflets annually thrown down by the Larches, grass
begins to grow as the trees rise in elevation, so as to allow
greater freedom for the circulation of the air below,—and
thus, land which was not worth one shilling an acre be-
comes most valuable pasture ; and we can say that our
own experience amply bears out the fact. The Duke of
Athol found that the value of the pasture in oak copses
was worth five or six shillings (sterling) per acre for eight
years only in twenty-four, when the copse is cut down
again. Under a Scotch fir plantation it is not worth six-
pence more per acre than it was before it was planted ;
under Beech and Spruce, it is worth less than it was before.
But under Larch, where the ground was not worth one shil-

ling per acre, before it was planted, the pasture becomes

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 273

worth from eight to ten shillings per acre, after the first
thirty years, when all the thinnings have been completed,
and the trees left for naval purposes, at the rate of four
hundred to the acre, and twelve feet apart.

The Larch is a very quick grower. Between 1740 and
1744, eleven trees were planted at Blair, the girths of
which, at growths from seventy-three to seventy-six years,
ranged from eight feet two inches to ten feet. This lot
was calculated to average one hundred feet each, in the
whole one thousand two hundred feet. The total measure-
ment of this lot of twenty-two trees, therefore, is two thou-
sand six hundred and forty-five feet, which, at the moderate
value of two shillings per foot, would give the sum of
£264 10s. ($1174) for twenty-two Larch trees, of something
under eighty years’ old. We find by the Duke of Athol’s
tables of measurement, that trees planted by him in 1743
were nine feet three inches in circumference, when mea-
sured at four feet from the ground, in 1795.

The plantations of Larch made by James Duke of
Athol, between 1733 and 1759, amounted to-one thousand
nine hundred and twenty-eight trees. Of these, eight
hundred and seventy-three were cut down between 1809
and 1816. The Duke of Athol had the satisfaction to
behold a British frigate built in 1819 and 1820 at Woolwich
yard, out of timber planted at Blair and Dunkeld, by
himself and the Duke his predecessor. And the extensive
and increasing Larch forests of those districts may yet be
called upon largely to supply both naval and mercantile
dock-yards. Mankind are prone to cherish and embalm
the memory of individuals whose claims to notoriety have
originated in their .wide-spread destruction of the human

race ; but they are too apt to forget those who have been
18

274 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the benefactors of mankind. That a vessel formed from
trees of his introduction and planting should have waved
the British flag over the ocean, is likely to be all the
reward contemporaneous or posthumous, which will ever
adhere to the noble Duke, for the great good he has done
to his country, and for the blessed legacy he has left to his
descendants, by the plantation of about fifteen thousand
five hundred and seventy-three English acres of ground,
which consumed above twenty-seven millions, four hundred
and thirty-one thousand, and six hundred trees.

The following is the probable supply of Larch timber
from Athol, beginning twelve years from 1817.

Loads annually. Scotch acres about.
12 years before cutting, or in 1829
12 years before cutting,. . 1841 4,250
10. do. do. pee. TSO 8,000
8 do. do. mbep C809 18,000 2000
8 do. do. . en Loo 30,000
16 do. do. views S83 52,000 { 3000
3. do. do. - a ee6 120,000 ’
69 ( years calculated to finish }
3 plants marked out. ; 4e9? 42800 ae
72 years. Seotch acres, 7000

The Larch is unquestionably the most enduring timber
that we have. It is remarkable, that whilst the red wood
or heart wood is not formed at all in the’ other resinous
trees, till they have lived for a good many years, the Larch,
on the contrary, begins to make it soon after it is planted ;
and while you may fell a Scotch fir of thirty years old,
and find no red wood in it, you can hardly cut down a
young Larch large enough to be a walking stick, without
finding just such a proportion of red wood compared to its
diameter as a tree, as you will find in the largest Larch tree

in the forest, compared to its diameter. To prove the

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 275

value of the Larch as a timber tree, several experiments
were made in the river Thames. Posts of equal thickness
and strength, some of Larch and others of oak, were
driven down facing the river wall, where they were
alternately covered with water by the effect of the tide,
and then left dry by its fall. This species of alternation is
the most trying of all circumstances for the endurance of
timber; and accordingly the oaken posts decayed, and
were twice renewed in the course of a very few years,
while those that were made of the Larch remained
altogether unchanged.

Besides the foregoing species (Larix Europea) we have
two native sorts much resembling it; which are chiefly
found in the states of Maine, Vermont, and New
Hampshire. These are known by the names of the Red
Larch (L. Microcarpa) and the Black Larch (L. pendula),
which latter is often called Hackmatack. In the coldest
parts of the Union, these often grow to 80 and 100 feet
high; but in the middle states they are only seen in
the swamps, and appear not to thrive so well except in
such situations. For this reason the European Larch is
of course greatly preferable when plantations are to be
made, either for prof or ornament. The latter is
generally increased from seed in the nurseries.

The American Larches are well worthy a place where
sufficient moisture can be commanded, as their peculiar
forms are striking, though not so finely picturesque as that
of the European species.

In the upper part of Massachusetts, we have observed
them in their native soils growing 70 or 80 feet high, and
assuming a highly ‘pleasing appearance. Their foliage is
bluish-green, and more delicate; yet altogether the Ame-

276 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

rican Larch appears to be more stiff and formal (except
far north) than the foreign tree.

Tue Viremia Tres. Virgilia.*
Nat. Ord. Leguminacee. = Lin. Syst. Decandria, Monogynia.

This fine American tree, still very rare in our orna-
mental plantations, is a native of West Tennessee, and the
banks of the Kentucky river, and in its wild localities
seems confined to rather narrow limits. It was named,
when first discovered, after the poet Virgil, whose
agreeable Georgics have endeared him to all lovers of
nature and a country life.

The Virgilia is certainly one of the most beautiful of
all that class of trees bearing papilionaceous, or pea-shaped
flowers, and pinnate leaves, of which the common locust
may serve as a familiar example. It grows to a fine,
rather broad head, about 30 or 40 feet high, with dense
and luxuriant foliage—much more massy and finely tufted
than that of most other pinnated-leaved trees. Each leaf
is composed of seven or eight leaflets, three or four inches
long, and half that breadth, the whéle leaf being more than
a foot in length. These expand rather late in the spring,
and are, about the middle of May, followed by numerous
terminal racemes, or clusters, of the most delicate and
charming pea-shaped blossoms, of a pure white. These
clusters are six or eight inches in length, and quite broad,
the flowers daintily formed, and arranged in a much more

graceful, loose, and easy manner, than those of the locust.

* Cladeastris tinctoria. Torrey and Gray.

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. Qi

They have a very agreeable, slight perfume, especially in
the evening, and the whole effect of the tree, when
standing singly on a lawn and filled with blossoms, is
highly elegant.

When the blossoms disappear, they are followed by the
pods, about the fourth of an inch wide, and three or four
inches long, containing a few seeds. These ripen in July
or August.

This tree is frequently called the Yellow-wood in its
native haunts—its heart wood abounding in a fine yellow
coloring matter, which, however, is said to be rather
difficult to fix, or render permanent. The bark is
beautifully smooth, and of a greenish grey color. In
autumn, the leaves, when they die off, take a lively yellow
tint.

This tree grows pretty rapidly, and is very agreeable in
its form and foliage, even while young. It commences
flowering when about ten or fifteen feet high, and we can
recommend it with confidence to the amateur of choice
trees as worthy of a conspicuous place in the smallest
collection. .

The only species known is Virgilia lutea. It was first
described by Michaux, and was sent to England about
the year 1812. Quite the finest planted specimens within
our knowledge are growing in some of the old seats in the
northern suburbs of Philadelphia, where there are several
thirty or forty feet in height, and exceedingly beautiful,
both in their form and blossoms. <A small specimen
on our lawn, eighteen feet high, blossoms now very pro-

fusely.

278 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tur Pavtownra Tree. Paulownia.

Nat. Ord. Scrophulariacez. Lin. Syst.

The Paulownia is an entirely new ornamental tree, very
lately introduced into our gardens and pleasure-grounds
from Japan, and is likely to prove hardy here, wherever
the Ailantus stands the winter, being naturally from the
same soil and climate as that tree. It has already attained
a great notoriety in the gardening world of the other
continent; and from a cost of four or five guineas a plant,
it is now reduced to as many shillings, being very readily
propagated. In the north of France it is perfectly hardy,
and will no doubt prove equally so here, south of the
latitude of Boston. With our own plants being newly
received, we have not yet had the opportunity of testing
this point.

The Paulownia is remarkable for the large size of its
foliage, and the great rapidity of its growth. The largest
leaves are more than two feet in diameter, slightly rough
or hairy, and serrated on the edges. They are heart-
shaped, and have been likened to those of the Catalpa, but
they perhaps more nearly resemble those of the common
sun-flower.

In its growth, this tree, while young, equals or exceeds
the Ailantus. In rich soils, near Paris, it has produced
shoots, in a single season, 12 or 14 feet in length. After
being two or three years planted, it commences yielding
its blossoms in panicled clusters. These are bluish lilac,
of an open mouthed, tubular form, are very abundantly
distributed, and, together with the large foliage, and the
robust habit of growth, give this tree a gay and striking

DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 279

appearance. Its flower buds open during the last of
April, or early in May, and have a slight, syringa-like
perfume.

The Paulownia, though yet very rare, is easy of
propagation by cuttings; and even pieces of the roots
grow freely. Should it prove as hardy as (from our fine
dry summers for ripening its wood) we confidently
anticipate, it will be worthy of a prominent place in every
arrangement of choice ornamental trees.

280 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

SECTION V.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES,

The History and Description of all the finest Hardy Evergreen Trees. REMARKS on
THEIR EFFECTS in LANDSCAPE GARDENING, INDIVIDUALLY AND IN COMPOSITION.
Their Cultivation, ete. The Pines. The Firs. The Cedar of Lebanon, and the
Deodar Cedar. The Red Cedar. The Arbor Vite. The Holly. The Yew, etc.

Beneath the forest’s skirt I rest,
Whose branching Pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage sigh.
BRYANT.

Tue Pine Tres. Pinus.

Nat. Ord. Conifere. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Monadelphia.

“Hf EK Pines compose by far the most
important genus of evergreen trees.
In either continent they form the

densest and most extensive forests
known, and their wood in civil and naval architecture,
and for various other purposes, is more generally used
than any other. In the United States and the Canadas,
there are ten species; in the territory west of the
Mississippi to the Pacific, including Mexico, there are
fourteen; in Europe fourteen; in Asia, eight, and in
Africa, two species. All the colder parts of the old world

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 281

—the mountains of Switzerland and the Alps, the shores
of the Baltic, vast tracts in Norway, Sweden, Germany,
Poland, and Russia, as well as millions of acres in our
own country, abound with immense and interminable
forests of Pine. Capable of enduring extreme cold,
growing on thin soils, and flourishing in an atmosphere,
the mean temperature of which is not greater than 37° or
38° Fahrenheit, they are found as far north as latitude
68° in Lapland; while on mountains they grow at a
greater elevation than any other arborescent plant. On
Mount Blanc, the Pines grow within 2,800 feet of the line
of perpetual snow.* In Mexico, also, Humboldt found
them higher than any other tree; and Lieut. Glennie
describes them as growing in thick forests on the mountain
of Popocatapetl, as high as 12,693 feet, beyond which
altitude vegetation ceases entirely.t

The Pines are, most of them, trees of considerable
magnitude and lofty growth, varying from 40 to 150 or
even 200 feet in height in favorable situations, rising with
a perpendicular trunk, which is rarely divided into
branches bearing much proportionate size to the main
stem, as in most deciduous trees. The branches are
much more horizontal than those of the latter class
(excepting the Larch). The leaves are linear or needle-
shaped, and are always found arranged in little parcels
of from two to six, the number varying in the different
species. The blossoms are produced in spring, and the
seeds, borne in cones, are not ripened, in many sorts, until
the following autumn. Every part of the stem abounds
in a resinous juice, which is extracted, and forms in the

* Edinburgh Phil. Journ.
+ Proc. Geological Soe. Lond. Arb. Brit.

282 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

various shapes of tar, pitch, rosin, turpentine, balsam, etc.,
a considerable article of trade and export.

As ornamental trees, the Pines are peculiarly valuable
for the deep verdure of their foliage, which, unchanged by
the severity of the seasons, is beautiful at all periods, and
especially so in winter; for the picturesque forms which
many of them assume when fully grown; and for the
effectual shelter and protection which they afford in cold,
bleak, and exposed situations. We shall here particular-
ize those species, natives of either hemisphere, that are
most valuable to the planter, and are also capable of -
enduring the open air of the middle states.

The White Pine (P. strobus), called also Sapling Pine,
and Apple Pine, in various parts of this country, and
Weymouth Pine abroad, is undoubtedly the most beautiful
North American tree of the genus. The foliage is much
lighter in color, more delicate in texture, and the whole
tufting of the leaves more airy and pleasing than that of
the other species. It is also beautiful in every stage of its
growth, from a plant to a stately tree of 150 feet. When
it grows in strong soil, it becomes thick and compact in its
head; but its most beautiful form is displayed when it
stands in a dry and gravelly site; there it shoots up witha
majestic and stately shaft, studded every six or eight feet
with horizontal tiers of branches and foliage. The hue of
the leaves is much paler and less sombre than that of the
other native sorts; and being less stiffly set upon the
branches, is more easily put in motion by the wind; the
murmuring of the wind among the Pine tops is, poetically,
thought to give out rather a melancholy sound :—

«« The pines of Mcenalus were heard to mourn,
And sounds of woe along the grove were borne,”

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 283

says Virgil, speaking of the European Pine. But. the
murmur of the slight breeze among the foliage of the
White Pine gives out a remarkably soothing and agreeable
sound, which agrees better with the description of Leigh
Hunt:

« And then there fled by me a rush of air
That stirr’d up all the other foliage there,
Filling the solitude with panting tongues,

At which the Pines woke up into their songs,
Shaking their choral locks.”

Pickering, one of our own poets, thus characterizes the

lody :
melody ‘

« The overshadowing pines alone, through which I roam,
Their verdure keep, although it darker looks ;
And hark! as it comes sighing through the grove,
The exhausted gale, a spirit there awakens,
That wild and melancholy music makes.”

This species—the White Pine—seldom becomes flattened
or rounded on the summit in old age, like many other sorts,
but preserves its graceful and tapering formentire. From
its pleasing growth and color, we consider it by far the
most desirable kind for planting in the proximity of
buildings, and its growth for an evergreen is also quite
rapid.

The leaves of the White Pine are thickly disposed on
the branches, in little bundles or parcels of five. The
cones are about five inches long: they hang, when nearly
ripe, in a pendulous manner from the branches, and open,
to shed their seeds, about the first of October. The bark
on trees less than twenty years old is remarkably smooth,
but becomes cracked and rough, like that of the other

284 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Pines, when they grow old, although it never splits and
separates itself from the trunk in scales, as in other species.

The great forests of White Pine lie in the northern parts
of the Union; and the geographical range of this tree is
comprised chiefly between New York and the 47th degree
of north latitude, it being neither capable of resisting the
fierce heat of the south, nor the intense cold of the extreme
northern regions. In Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont, the White Pine abounds in various situations,
adapting itself to every variety of soil, from dry, gravelly
upland, to swamps constantly wet. Michaux measured
two trunks near the river Kennebec, one of which was
154 feet long, and 54 inches in diameter; the other 144
feet long, and 44 inches in diameter, at three feet from the
ground. Dr. Dwight also mentions a specimen on the
Kattskill 249 feet long, and several on the Unadilla 200
feet long, and three in diameter.* These, though they are
remarkable specimens, show the stately altitude which this
fine species sometimes attains, equalling in majesty the

grandest specimens of the old world:

The rougher rinded Pine,

The great Argoan ship’s brave ornament,
Which, coveting with his high top’s extent
To make the mountains touch the stars divine,
Decks all the forest with embellishment.
SPENSER.

The Yellow Pine (P. mitis) is a fine evergreen, usually
reaching a stature of 50 or 60 feet, with a nearly uniform
diameter of about 18 inches for two-thirds of its length.
The branches generally take a handsome conical shape, and
the whole head considerably resembles that of the spruce,

* Dwight’s Travels, Vol. iv. p. 21—26.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 285

whence it is sometimes called the Spruce Pine.. The term
Yellow Pine arises from the color of the wood as contrasted
with that of the foregoing sort, which is white. The leaves
of this species are long and flexible, arranged in pairs upon
the branches, and have a fine dark green color. The cones
are very small, scarcely measuring an inch and a half in
length, and are clothed on the exterior with short spines.
The growth is quite slow.

The Yellow Pine is rarely found above Albany to the
northward, but it extends as far south as the Floridas. It
grows in the greatest abundance in New Jersey, Maryland,
and Virginia, and sometimes measures five or six feet in
circumference. In planiations, it has the valuable property
to recommend it, of growing on the very poorest lands.

The Pitch Pine (P. rigida) is a very distinct sort,
common in the whole of the Uniied States east of the
Alleghanies. It is very stiff and formal in its growth when
young, but as it approaches maturity, it becomes one of the
most picturesque trees of the genus. The branches,
which shoot out horizontally, bend downwards at the
extremities, and the top of the tree, when old, takes a
flattened shape. The whole air and expression of the tree
is wild and romantic, and is harmonious with portions of
scenery where these characters predominate. The leaves
are collected in threes, and the color of the foliage is a dark
green. The cones are pyramidal, from one to three inches
long, and armed with short spines.

The bark of this kind of Pine is remarkably rough,
black, and furrowed, even upon young trees ; and the wood
is filled with resinous sap, from which pitch and tar are
copiously supplied. . The trees growin various parts of
the country, both on the most meagre soils and in moist

286 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

swamps, with almost equal facility. In the latter situations
they are, however, comparatively destitute of resin, but the
stems often rise to 80 feet in elevation.

The foregoing are the finest and most important species
of the north. The Red Pine (Pinus rubra) and the Grey
Pine are species of small or secondary size, chiefly indige-
nous to British America. The Jersey Pine (P. inops) isa
dwarfish species, often called the Scrub Pine, which seldom
grows more than 25 feet high.

There are some splendid species that are confined to
the southern states, where they grow in great luxuriance.
Among the most interesting of these is the Long-leaved
Pine (P. Australis), a tree of 70 feet elevation, with superb
wandlike foliage, borne in threes, often nearly a foot in
length. The cones are also seven or eight inches long,
containing a kernel or seed of agreeable flavor. As this
tree grows as far north as Norfolk in Virginia, we are
strongly inclined to believe that it might be naturalized in
the climate of the middle states, and think it would become
one of the most valuable additions to our catalogue of ever-
green trees. The Loblolly Pine (P. Teda) of Virginia
has also fine foliage, six inches or more in length, and
grows to 80 feet in height. Besides these already named,
the southern states produce the Pond Pine (P. Serotina),
which resembles considerably the Pitch Pine, with, how-
ever, longer leaves, and the Table Mountain Pine (P. Pun-
gens), which grows 40 or 50 feet high, and is found exclu-
sively upon that part of the Alleghany range.

We must not forget in this enumeration of the Pines of
North America, the magnificent species of California and
the North-West coast. The most splendid of these was
discovered in Northern California, and named the Pinus

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 287

Lambertiana, in honor of that distinguished botanist, A. B.
Lambert, Esq., of London, the author of a superb work on
this genus of trees. It is undoubtedly one of the finest
evergreens in the world, averaging from 100 to 200 feet in
height. Its discoverer, Mr. Douglass, the indefatigable
collector of the Horticultural Society of London, measured
one of these trees that had blown down, which was two
hundred and fifteen feet in length, and fifty-seven feet nine
inches in circumference, at three feet from the root; while
at one hundred and thirty-four feet from the root, it was
seventeen feet five inches in girth. This, it is stated, is by
no means the maximum height of the species. The cones
of the Lambert Pine measure sixteen inches in length; and
the seeds are eaten by the natives of those regions, either
roasted or made into cakes, after being pounded. The other
species found by Mr. Douglass grow naturally in the
mountain valleys of the western coast, and several of them,
as the Pinus grandis and nobilis, are almost as lofty as
the foregoing sort; while Pinus monticola and P. Sabi-
niana are highly beautiful in their forms and elegant in
foliage. The seeds of nearly all these sorts were first sent
to the garden of the London Horticultural Society, where
many of the young trees are now growing; and we hope
that they will soon be introduced into our plantations,
which they are so admirably calculated, by their elegant
foliage and stupendous magnitude, to adorn.

The European Pines next deserve our attention. The
most common species in the north of Europe is the Scotch
Pine (P. sylvestris), a dark, tall, evergreen tree, with bluish
foliage, of 80 feet in height, which furnishes most of the
deal timber of Europe. It is one of the most rapid of all
the Pines in its growth, even on poor soils, and is therefore

288 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

valuable in new places. The Stone Pine (P. pinea) is a
native of the South of Europe, where it is decidedly the
most picturesque evergreen tree of that continent. It
belongs peculiarly to Italy, and its “ vast canopy, supported
on a naked column of great height, forms one of the chief
and peculiar beauties in Italian scenery, and in the living
landscapes of Claude.” We regret that it is too tender to
bear our winters, but its place may in a great measure be
supplied by the Pinaster or Cluster Pine (P. pinaster),
which is quite hardy, and succeeds well in the United
States. This has much of the same picturesque expression,
depressed or rounded head, and tall columnar stem, which
mark the Stone Pine; while its thickly massed foliage,
clustering cones, and rough bark, render it distinct and
strikingly interesting.

The Corsican Pine (P. larica) is a handsome, regular
shaped, pyramidal tree, with the branches disposed in tiers
like those of the White Pine. It grows to a large size, and
is valued for its extremely dark green foliage, thickly spread
upon the branches. It is also one of the most rapid growers
among the foreign sorts, and has been found to grow
remarkably well upon the barren chalk downs of England.
Pinus cembra is a very slow growing, though valuable
kind, indigenous to Switzerland, and hardy here.

These are the principal European species that deserve
notice here for their ornamental qualities. ‘Some splendid
additions have been made to this genus, by the discovery
of new species on the Himalaya mountains of Asia; and
from the great elevation at which they are found growing
wild, we have reason to hope that they will become natu-
ralized in our climate.

We must not leave this extensive family of trees without

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 289

adverting to their numerous and important uses. In the
United States, full four-fifths of all the houses built are con-
structed of the White and Yellow Pine, chiefly of the former.
Soft, easily worked, light and fine in texture, it is almost
universally employed in carpentry, and for all the purposes
of civil architecture; while the tall stately trunks furnish
masts and spars, not only for our own vessels, but many of
those of England. A great commerce is therefore carried
on in the timber of this tree, and vast quantities of the
boards, etc., are annually exported to Europe. The Yellow
and Pitch Pine furnish much of the enormous supplies of
fuel consumed by the great number of steamboats employed
in navigating our numerous inland rivers. The Long-
leaved Pine is the great timber tree of the southern states ;
and when we take into account all its various products, we
must admit it to be the most valuable tree of the whole
family. The consumption of the wood of this tree in build-
‘ing, in the southern states, is immense ; and its sap furnishes
nearly all the turpentine, tar, pitch, and rosin, used in this
country, or exported to Europe. The turpentine flows from
large incisions made in the trunk (into boxes fastened to
the side of the trees for that purpose) during the whole of
the spring and summer. Spirit of turpentine is obtained
from this by distillation. Tar is procured by burning the
dead wood in kilns, when it flows out in a current from a
conduit made in the bottom. Pitch is prepared by boiling
tar until it is about one half diminished in bulk; and rosin
is the residuum of the distillation when spirit of turpentine
is made. The Carolinas produce all these in the greatest
abundance, and so long ago as 1807, the exportation of
them to England alcne amounted to nearly $800,000 in
that single year.
19

290 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tue Fir Trees. Abies.

Nat. Ord. Conifer. Lin. Syst. Monecia, Monadelphia.

The Fir trees differ from the Pines, to which they are
nearly related, in having much shorter leaves, which are
placed singly upon the branches, instead of being collected
in little bundles or parcels of two, three, or five, as is the
case in all Pines. They generally grow in a more conical
manner than the latter, and in ornamental plantations owe
their beauty in most Gases more to their symmetrical
regularity of growth than to picturesque expression.

The Balsam, or Balm of Gilead Fir (A. balsamea),
sometimes also called the American Silver Fir, is one of
the most ornamental of our native evergreens. It is found
most abundantly in Maine and Nova Scotia, but is
scattered more or less on the mountain tops, and in cold
swamps, through various other parts of the Union. At
Pine Orchard, near the Catskill Mountain-house, it
flourishes well, though never seen below the elevation of
1,800 feet. When standing singly, it forms a_ perfect
pyramid of fine dark green foliage, 30 or 40 feet high,
regularly clothed from the bottom to the top. The leaves,
about half or three-fourths of an inch long, are silvery
white on the under surface, though dark green above ; and
are inserted both on the sides and tops of the branches. It
is one of the most beautiful evergreens for planting in
grounds near the house, and is perhaps more cultivated for
that purpose than any other in the Union. The cones,
which are four or five inches long, like those of the
European Silver Fir point upwards. However small the
plants of this Fir may be, they are still interesting, as they

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 291

display the same symmetry as full grown trees. The deep
green color of the verdure of the Balm of Gilead Fir is
retained unchanged in alt its beauty through the severest
winters, which causes it to contrast agreeably with the
paler tints of the Spruces. On the trunks of trees of this
species are found small vesicles or blisters, filled with a
liquid resin, which is extracted and sold under the name
of Balm of Gilead,* for its medicinal virtues.

The European Silver Fir (A. picea) strongly resembles,
when young, the Balsam Fir. But its leaves are longer
and coarser, and the cones are much larger, while it also
attains twice or three times the size of the latter. In the
forests of Germany it sometimes rises over 100 feet ; and
it always becomes a large tree in a favorable soil. It
grows slowly during the first twenty years, but afterwards
advances with much more rapidity. It thrives well, and
is quite hardy in this country.

The Norway Spruce Fir (A. communist) is by far the
handsomest of that division of the Firs called the Spruces.
It generally rises with a perfectly straight trunk to the
height of from 80 to 150 feet. It is a native, as its name
denotes, of the colder parts of Europe, and consequently
grows well in the northern states. The branches hang
down with a fine graceful curve or sweep; and although
the leaves are much paler than those of the foregoing
kinds, yet the thick fringe-like tufts of foliage which clothe
the branches, give the whole tree a rich, dark appearance.
The large cones, too, always nearly six inches long, are

* The true Balm of Gilead is an Asiatic herb, Amyris gileadensis.

t Abies excelsa.

292 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

beautifully pendent, and greatly increase the beauty of an
old tree of this kind.

The Norway Spruce is the great tree of the Alps; and
as a park tree, to stand alone, we scarcely know a more
beautiful one. It then generally branches not quite down
to the ground ; and its fine, sweeping, feathery branches
hang down in the most graceful and pleasing manner.
There are some superb specimens of this species in various
gardens of the middle states, 80 or 100 feet high.

The Black, or Double Spruce (A. nigra), sometimes also
called the Red Spruce, is very common in the north; and,
according to Michaux, forms a third part of the forests of
Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, as well as New Bruns-
wick and Lower Canada. The leaves are quite short and
stiff, and clothe the young branches around the whole
surface ; and the whole tr€e, where it much abounds, has
rather a gloomy aspect. In the favorable humid black soils
of those countries, the Black Spruce grows 70 feet high,
forming a fine tall pyramid of verdure. But it is rarely
found in abundance further south, except in swamps, where
its growth is much less strong and vigorous. Mingled
with other evergreens, it adds to the variety, and the
peculiar coloring of its foliage gives value to the livelier
tints of other species of Pine and Fir.

The White or Single Spruce (A. alba) is a smaller and
less common tree than the foregoing, though it is often
found in the same situations. The leaves are more thinly
arranged on the young shoots, and they are longer and
project more from the branches. The color, however, is a
distinguishing characteristic between the two sorts ; for
while in the Black Spruce it is very dark, in this species it

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 293

is of a light bluish green tint. The cones are also much
larger on the White Spruce tree.

The Hemlock Spruce, or, as it is more commonly called,
the Hemlock (A. canadensis), is one of the finest and most
distinct of this tribe of trees. It is most abundantly
multiplied in the extreme northern portions of the Union ;
and abounds more or less, in scattered groups and thickets,
throughout all the middle states, while at the south it is
confined chiefly to the mountains.

It prefers a soil, which, though slightly moist, is less humid
than that where the Black Spruce succeeds best; and it
thrives well in the deep cool shades of mountain valleys.
In the Highlands of the Hudson it grows in great luxuri-
ance ; and in one locality, the sides of a valley near Crow’s
nest, the surface is covered with the most superb growths
of this tree, reaching up from the water’s.edge to the very
summit of the hill, 1,400 feet high, like a rich and shadowy
mantle, sprinkled here and there only with the lighter and
more delicate foliage of deciduous trees.

The average height of the Hemlock in good soils is about
70 or 80 feet ; and when standing alone, or in very small
groups, it is one of the most beautiful coniferous trees. The
leaves are disposed in two rows on each side of the branches,
and considerably resemble those of the Yew, though looser
in texture, and livelier in color. The foliage, when the
tree has grown to some height, hangs from the branches in
loose pendulous tufts, which give it a peculiarly graceful
appearance. When young, the form of the head is
regularly pyramidal; but when the tree attains more age,
it often assumes very irregular and picturesque forms.

294 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Sometimes it grows up in a thick, dense, dark mass of
foliage, only varied by the pendulous branches, which
project beyond the grand mass of the tree; at others it
forms a loose, airy, and graceful top, permeable to the
slightest breeze, and waving its loose tufts of leaves to
every passing breath of air. In almost all cases, it is
extremely ornamental, and we regret that it is not more
generally employed in decorating the grounds of our
residences. It should be transplanted (like all of this class
of trees) quite early in the spring, the roots being preserved
as nearly entire as possible, and not suffered to become the
least dried, before they are replaced in the soil.

The uses of the Fir tree are important. The Norway
Spruce Fir furnishes the white deal timber so extensively
employed in Europe for all the various purposes of
building; and its tall, tapering stems afford fine masts for
vessels. The Black Spruce timber is also highly valuable,
and is thought by many persons to surpass in excellence
that of the Norway Spruce. The young shoots also enter
into the composition of the celebrated Spruce beer of this
country, a delightful and very healthful beverage. And
the Hemlock not only furnishes a vast quantity of the
joists used in building frame-houses, but supplies the
tanners with an abundance of bark, which, when mixed
with that of the oak, is highly esteemed in the preparation

of leather.

We regret that the fine evergreen trees both of this
country and Europe, which compose the Pine and Fir
tribes, have not hitherto received more of the attention
of planters. It is inexpressible how much they add to the

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 295

beauty of a country residence in winter. At that season,
when, during three or four months the landscape is
bleak and covered with snow, these noble trees, properly
intermingled with the groups in view from the window,
or those surrounding the house, give an appearance of
verdure and life to the scene which cheats winter of half
its dreariness. In exposed quarters, also, and in all windy
and bleak situations, groups of evergreens form the most
effectual shelter at all seasons of the year, while many
of them have the great additional recommendation of
growing upon the most meagre soils.

In fine country residences abroad, it is becoming
customary to select some extensive and suitable locality,
where all the species of Pines and Firs are collected
together, and allowed to develope themselves in their
full beauty of proportion. Such a spot is called a Pinetum ;
and the effect of all the different species growing in the
same assemblage, and contrasting their various forms,
heights, and peculiarities, cannot but be strikingly ele-
gant. One of the largest and oldest collections of this
kind is the Pinetum of Lord Grenville, at Dropmore, near
Windsor, England. This contains nearly 100 kinds,
comprising all the sorts known to English botanists, that
will endure the open air of their mild climate. The great
advantage of these Pinetums is, that many of the more
delicate species, which if exposed singly would perish,
thrive well, and become quite naturalized under the shelter
of the more hardy and vigorous sorts.

296 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Tue Crepar or Lesanon Tree. Cedrus.
Nat. Ord. Conifere. Lin. Syst. Moncecia, Monadelphia.

The Cedar of Lebanon is universally admitted by
European authors to be the sie | seis tree of
the old world. Its native sites are the elevated valleys
and ridges of Mount Lebanon and the neighboring heights
of the lofty groups of Asia Minor. There it once covered
immense forests, but it is supposed these have never
recovered from the roads made upon them by the forty
score thousand hewers employed by Solomon to procure
the timber for the erection of the Temple. Modern
travellers speak of them as greatly diminished in number,
though there are still specimens measuring thirty-six feet
in circumference. Mount Lebanon is inhabited by nu-
merous Maronite Christians, who hold annually a
celebration of the Transfiguration under the shade of
the existing trees, which they call the “ Feast of Cedars.”

The Cedar of Lebanon is nearly related to the Larch,
having its leaves collected in parcels like that tree, but
differs widely in the circumstance of its foliage being
evergreen. It is remarkable for the wide éxtension of its
branches, and the immense surface covered by its
overshadowing canopy of foliage. In the sacred writings
it is often alluded to as an emblem of great strength, beauty,
and duration. “Behold the Assyrian was a Cedar in
Lebanon, with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud,
and of an high stature ; and his top was among the thick
boughs. His boughs were multiplied, and his branches
became long. The fir trees were not like his boughs, nor

_————

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 297

the chestnut trees like his branches, nor any tree in the
garden of God like unto him in beauty.’’*

In England the Cedar of Lebanon appears to have
become quite naturalized. There it is considered by far
the most ornamental of all the Pine tribe,—possessing,
when full grown, an air of dignity and grandeur beyond
any other tree. To attain the fullest beauty of develop-
ment, it should always stand alone, so that its far-spreading
horizontal branches can have full room to stretch out and
expand themselves on every side. Loudon, in his
Arboretum, gives a representation of a superb specimen
now growing at Sion House, the seat of the Duke of
Northumberland, which is 72 feet high, 24 in circum-
ference, and covers an area, with its huge depending
branches, of 117 feet. There are many other Cedars in
England almost equal to this in grandeur. Sir T. D.
Lauder gives an account of one at Whitton, which blew
down in 1779: it then measured 70 feet in height, 16 feet
in circumference, and covered an area of 100 feet in
diameter. To show the rapidity of the growth of this tree,
he quotes three Cedars of Lebanon, which were planted at
Hopetoun House, Scotland, in the year 1748. The mea-
surement is the circumference of the trunks, and shows
the rapid increase after they have attained a large size.

1801. 1820. 1825. 1833. | 39 years,
fst. ft. in. ft. im, 1 a 18
First Cedar, | 10 0 | 13 14 | 14 0 15; <1
Second do. 8 6 10 94) 11 4 1? 3
| 10 8 LL 6

Third do. 7 10 9 94

A Chestnut measured at the same periods, only increased

Ezekiel xxxi.

298 LANDSCAPE -GARDENING.

From the above table, it will be seen how congenial even
the cold climate of Scotland is to the growth of this tree.
Indeed in its native soils, the tops of the surrounding hills
are almost perpetually covered with snow, and it is, there-
fore, one of the very hardiest of the evergreens of the old
world. There is no reason why it should not succeed
admirably in many parts of the United States; and when
we consider its great size, fine dark green foliage, and wide

spreading limbs which

“ Overarching, frame

Most solemn domes within,”
SHELLEY.

as well as the many interesting associations connected
with it, we cannot but think it better worth our early
attention, and extensive introduction, than almost any
other foreign tree. Evergreens are comparatively difficult
to import, and as we have made the experiment of
importing Cedars of Lebanon from the English nurseries
with but indifferent success, we would advise that persons
attempting its cultivation should procure the cones
containing the seeds from England, when they may be
reared directly in our own soil, which will of course be an
additional advantage to the future growth of the tree.*
The situations found to be most favorable to this Cedar,
in the parks and gardens of Europe, are sandy or gravelly
soils, either with a moist subsoil underneath, or in the
neighborhood of springs, or bodies of water. In such places
it is found to advance with a rapidity equal to the Larch,

* The finest Cedar of Lebanon in the Union, is growing in the grounds of
T. Ash, Esq., of Westchester Co., N. Y., being 50 feet high and of
corresponding breadth. It stands near a Purple-leaved Beech, equally large
and beautiful.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 299

one of the fastest growing timber trees, as we have already
noticed.

The Deodara, or Indian Cedar (Cedrus Deodara), is a
magnificent species of this tree, recently introduced from
the high mountains of Nepal and Indo-Tartary. It stands
the climate of Scotland, and appears likely to succeed here
wherever the Cedar of Lebanon will flourish. In its native
country it is described as being a lofty and majestic tree,
frequently attaining the height of 150 feet, with a trunk 30
feet in circumference. The leaves are larger than those
of the Cedar of Lebanon, of a deeper bluish green, covered
with a silvery bloom; the cones, borne in pairs, are of a
reddish brown color, and are both longer and broader than
those of the latter species. In some parts of Upper India
it is considered a sacred tree (Deodara—tree of God), and
is only used to burn as incense in days of high ceremony ;
but in others it is held in the highest esteem as a timber
tree, having all the good qualities of the Cedar of Lebanon
—its great durability being attested by its sound state in
the roofs of temples of ,that country, which cannot have
been built less than 200 years.

We have but just introduced the Deodara into the United
States, and can therefore say little of its growth or beauty
here, though we have little doubt that it will prove one of
the noblest evergreen trees for our pleasure grounds. Lou-

_don says, “the specimens in England are yet small; but

the feathery lightness of its spreading branches, and the
beautiful glaucous hue of its leaves, render it, even when
young, one of the most ornamental of the coniferous trees ;
and all the travellers who have seen it full grown, agree
that it unites an extraordinary degree of majesty and gran-
deur with its beauty. The tree thrives in every part of

300 | LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Great Britain where it has been tried, even as far north as
Aberdeen, where, as in many other places, it is found
hardier than the Cedar of Lebanon. It is readily propa-
gated by seeds, which preserve their vitality when imported
in the cones. It also grows freely by cuttings, which appear
to make as handsome free-growing plants as those raised
from seed.” The soil and culture for this tree are pre-
cisely those for the Cedar of Lebanon.

Tue Rep Cepar Trez. Juniperus.
Nat. Ord. Conifere. Lin. Syst. Diccia, Monadelphia.

The Red Cedar is a very common tree, indigenous to
this country, and growing in considerable abundance from
Maine to Florida; but thriving with the greatest luxuriance
in the sea-board states. When fully grown, the Red Cedar
is about 40 feet in height, and little more than a foot in
diameter. The leaves are very small, composed of minute
scales, and lie pretty close to the branches. Small blue
berries, borne thickly upon the branches of the female trees
in autumn and winter, contain the seeds. These are
covered with a whitish exudation, and are sometimes used,
like those of the foreign juniper, in the manufacture of gin.

The Red Cedar has less to recommend it to the eye than
most of the evergreens which we have already described.
The color of the foliage is dull and dingy at many seasons,
and the form of the young tree is too compactly conical to
please generally. When old, however, we have seen it
throw off this formality, and become an interesting, and
indeed a picturesque tree. Then its branches shooting out

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 301

in a horizontal direction, clad with looser and more pendent
foliage, give the whole tree quite another character. The
twisted stems, too, when they become aged, have a singular,
dried-looking, whitish bark, which is quite unique and
peculiar. There is a very fine natural avenue of Red
Cedars near Fishkill landing, in Duchess Co., composed of
two rows of noble trees 35 or 40 feet high, which is a very
agreeable walk in winter and early spring. This has given.
the name of Cedar Grove to the country seat in question,
where the Red Cedar grows spontaneously upon a slate
subsoil with great luxuriance. There the trees are dis-
seminated widely by the birds, which feed with avidity
upon the berries.

The Red Cedar is well known to every person as one of
our very best timber trees. It takes its name from the
reddish hue of the perfect wood. This has a fragrant odor,
and is not only light, fine-grained, and close in texture, but
extremely durable. It is therefore much employed (though
of late it is becoming scarcer) in conjunction with Live
oak, which is too heavy alone, in ship-building. It is also
valued for its great durability as posts for fencing; and is
exported to Europe, to be used in the manufacture of pen-
cils, and other useful purposes.

Tue Arsor Vir Tree. Thuja.
Nat. Ord. Conifer. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Monadelphia.

The Arbor Vite (Thuja occidentalis), sometimes also
called Flat Cedar, or White Cedar, is distinguished from

302 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

most evergreens by its flat foliage, composed of a great
number of scales closely imbricated, or overlaying each
other, which give the whole a compressed appearance.
The seeds are borne in a small cone, usually not more than
half an inch in length.

This tree is extremely formal and regular in outline
in almost every stage of growth; generally assuming the
shape of an exact cone or pyramid of close foliage, of con-
siderable extent at the base, close to the ground, and nar-
rowing upwards to a sharp point. So regular is their
outline in many cases, when they are growing upon
favorable soils, that at a short distance they look as if they
had been subjected to the clipping-shears. The sameness
of its form precludes the employment of this evergreen in
so extensive a manner as most others; that is, in inter-
mingling it promiscuously with other trees of less artificial
forms. But the Arbor Vite, from this very regularity, is
well suited to support and accompany scenery when objects
of an avowedly artificial character predominate, as buildings,
etc., where it may be used with a very happy effect. There
is also no evergreen tree indigenous or introduced, which
will make a more effectual, close, and impervious screen
than this: and as it thrives well in almost every soil, moist,
dry, rich, or poor, we strongly recommend it whenever
such thickets are desirable. We have ourselves tried the
experiment with a hedge of it about 200 feet long, which
was transplanted about five or six feet high from the native
habitats of the young trees, and which fully answers our
expectations respecting it, forming a perfectly thick screen,
and an excellent shelter on the north of a range of buildings
at all seasons of the year, growing perfectly thick without

trimming, from the very ground upwards.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 303

The only fault of this tree as an evergreen, is the
comparatively dingy green hue of its foliage in winter.
But to compensate for this, it is remarkably fresh looking
in its spring, summer, and autumn tints, comparing well at
those seasons even with the bright verdure of deciduous
trees.

The Arbor Vite is very abundant in New Brunswick,
Vermont, and Maine. In New York, the shores of the
Hudson, at Hampton landing, 70 miles above the city of
New York, are lined on both sides with beautiful speci-
mens of this tree, many of them being perfect cones in
outline ; and it is here much more symmetrical and perfect
in its growth than we have seen it. Forty feet is about
the maximum altitude of the Arbor Vite, and the stem
rarely measures more than ten or twelve inches in
diameter.

The wood is very light, soft, and fine-grained, but is
reputed to be equally durable with the Red Cedar. It
is consequently employed for various purposes in build-
ing and fencing, where, in the northern districts, it
grows in sufficient Sbundance, and of suitable size.

The Chinese Arbor Vite (T°. orientalis) is a tree of
much smaller and more feeble growth. It cannot,
therefore, as an ornamental tree, be put in competition
with our native species. Bnt it is a beautiful evergreen
for the garden and shrubbery, where it finds a more
suitable and sheltered site, being rather tender north of
New York.

The White Cedar (Thuja spheroida*), which belongs
to the same genus as the Arbor Vite, is a much loftier

* Cupressus thuyoides of the old botanists.

304 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

tree, often growing 80 feet high. It can hardly be
considered a tree capable of being introduced into
cultivated situations, as it is found only in thick swamps
and wet grounds. The foliage considerably resembles
that of the common Arbor Vite, though rather narrower,
and more delicate in texture. The cones are small and
rugged, and change from green to a blue or brown tint in
autumn. In the south it is often called the Juniper.

The White Cedar furnishes excellent shingles, much
more durable than those made of either Pine or Cypress ;
in Philadelphia the wood is much esteemed and greatly
used in cooperage. “Charcoal,” according to Michaux,
“highly esteemed in the manufacture of gunpowder, is
made of young stocks, about an inch and a half in
diameter, deprived of their bark; and the seasoned wood
affords beautiful lamp-black, lighter and more intensely
colored than that obtained from the Pine.”

Tue American Hotty Tagger. Tex.
Nat. Ord. Aquitoliacee. Lin. Syst. Dicecia, Tetrandria.

The European Holly is certainly one of the evergreen
glories of the English gardens. There its deep green,
glossy foliage, and bright coral berries, which hang on for
along time, are seen enlivening the pleasure-grounds and
shrubberies throughout the whole of that leafless and
inactive period in vegetation—winter. It is also, in our
mother tongue, inseparably connected with the delightful
associations of merry Christmas gambols and feastings,

when both the churches and the dwelling-houses are

——

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 305

decorated with its boughs. We have much to regret,
therefore, in the severity of our winters, which will not
permit the European Holly to flourish in the middle or
eastern states, as a hardy tree. South of Philadelphia, it
may become acclimated; but it appears to suffer greatly
further north.

A beautiful succedaneum, however, may, we believe, be
found in the American Holly (/lex opaca), which indeed
very closely resembles the foreign species in almost every
particular. The leaves are waved or irregular in surface
and outline, though not so much so as those of the latter,
and their color is a much lighter shade of green. Like
those of the foreign plant, they are armed on the edges
with thorny prickles, and the surface is brilliant and
polished. The American Holly is seen in the greatest
perfection on the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia,
and the lower part of New Jersey. There it thrives
best upon loose, dry, and gravelly soils. Michaux says
it is also common through all the extreme southern states,
and in West Tennessee, in which latter places it abounds
on the margins of shady swamps, where the soil is cool
and fertile. In such spots it often reaches forty feet in
height, and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter.

Although the growth of the Holly is slow, yet it is
always beautiful; and we regret that the American sort,
which may be easily brought into cultivation, is so very
rarely seen in our gardens or grounds. The seeds are
easily procured, and if scalded and sowed in autumn,
immediately after being gathered, they vegetate freely.
For hedges the Holly is altogether unrivalled ; and it was
also one of the favorite plants for verdant sculpture, in the

ancient style of gardening. Evelyn, in the edition of his
20

306 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Sylva, published in London in 1664, thus bursts out in
eloquent praise of it: “ Above all natural greens which
enrich our home-born store, there is none certainly to be
compared to the Holly; insomuch that I have often
wondered at our curiosity after foreign plants and expen-
sive difficulties, to the neglect of the culture of this vulgar
but incomparable tree,—whether we will propagate it for
use and defence, or for sight and ornament. Is there
under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the
kind, than an impregnable hedge of one hundred and ~
sixty-five feet in length, seven high, and five in diameter,
which I can show in my poor gardens, at any time of the
year, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves? The
taller standards at orderly distances blushing with their
natural coral. It mocks the rudest assaults of the weather,
beasts, or hedge-breaker :—

‘Et illum nemo impune lacessit.’”

Tue Yew Tree. Tazus.
Nat. Ord. Taxacee. Lin. Syst. Moneecia, Monadelphia.

The European Yew is a slow-growing, evergreen tree,
which often, when full grown, measures forty feet in height,
and a third more in the diameter of its branches. The
foliage is flat, linear, and is placed in two rows, like that of
the Hemlock tree, though much darker in color. The
flowers are brown or greenish, and inconspicuous, but they
are succeeded by beautiful scarlet berries, about half or
three-fourths of an inch in diameter, which are open at
the end, where a small nut or seed is deposited. These

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 307

berries have an exquisitely delicate, waxen appearance,
and contribute highly to the beauty of the tree.

The growth of this tree, even in its native soil, is by no
means rapid. In twenty years, says Loudon, it will attain
the height of fifteen or eighteen feet, and it will continue
growing for one hundred years; after which it becomes
comparatively stationary, but will live many centuries.

When young, the Yew is rather compact and bushy in
its form ; but as it grows old, the foliage spreads out in fine
horizontal masses, the outline of the tree is irregularly
varied, and the whole ultimately becomes highly venerable
and picturesque. When standing alone, it generally shoots
out into branches at some three or four feet above the
surface of the ground, and is ramified into a great number
of close branches.

FSO

[Fig. 40. The English Yew.]

In England, it has been customary, since the earliest
settlement of that island by the Britons, to plant the Yew
in churchyards ; and it is therefore as decidedly conse-
crated to this purpose there, as the Cypress is in the south

308 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of Europe. For the decoration of places of burial it is
well adapted, from the deep and perpetual verdure of its
foliage, which, conjointly with its great longevity, may be
considered as emblematical of immortality. The custom
still exists, in a few places in Ireland and Wales, of
carrying twigs of this and other evergreen trees in fune-
rals, and throwing them into the grave, with the corpse.*

Ee Yet strew

Upon my dismall grave

Such offerings as ye have,

Forsaken Cypresse and Yewe ;

For kinder flowers can have no birth
Or growth from sueh unhappy earth.”

SraNLy.

There is a mournful yet sweet and pensive pleasure, in
thus adorning these last places of repose with such
beautiful, unfading memorials of grief. They rob the
graveyard or cemetery of its horrors, and by their
perpetual garlands of verdure and freshness, inevitably
lead the mind from the ideas of death which an ordinary
barren churchyard alone inspires, to reflections of a purer
and loftier cast; the immortality which awaits the soul
when disenthralled of clay. Among the old English poets,
we find much of these feelings in favor of decorating the
precincts of the grave, and surrounding them with what
may be called the poetry of grief. Uerrick, one of the
sweetest of the number, in some lines addressed to the
Cypress and Yew, says:

“ Bothe of ye have
Relation to the grave ;

And where
The funeral trump sounds, you are there.

* Encyclopedia of Plants, 849.

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 309

I shall be made
Ere longe a fleeting shade ;
Pray come,
And do some honor to my tomb.”

Some of the old Yews in the churchyards and gardens
of England have attained a wonderful period of longevity.
Gilpin mentions one in the churchyard of Tisbury in
Dorsetshire, now standing and in fine foliage, though the
trunk is quite hollow, which measures thirty-seven feet in
circumference, and the limbs are proportionately large.
The tree is entered by arustic gate ; and seventeen persons
lately breakfasted in its interior. It is said to have been
planted many generations ago by the Arundel family. The
famous Yew at Arkenwyke House, which Henry VIIL.
made his place of meeting with Anna Boleyn when she
was there, is supposed to be upwards of a thousand years
old ; it is forty-nine feet high, twenty-seven in circumfer-
ence, and the branches extend over an area of two hundred
and seven feet. There are, besides these, a great number
of other celebrated Yews in England, of immense size and
age, which are preserved with the greatest care and
veneration.

It is a common saying of the inhabitants of the New
Forest in England, says Gilpin, that “a post of Yew will
outlast a post of iron. The wood is extremely durable,
and being hard and very fine-grained, as well as beau-
tifully variegated with reddish or orange veins, it is
much prized for inlaying, veneering, and other similar
purposes by the cabinet-makers abroad. Tables made of
it are said to be more beautiful than those of mahogany ;
and the wood of the root to vie in beauty with that of the
Citron.

310 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

It is also remarkably elastic, and is therefore much valued
for bows. In ancient times, when bows and arrows were
the chief weapons of destruction in war, the bows made
of the Yew tree were valued by the ancient Britons above
all others. According to the Arboretum Britannicum, in
Switzerland, where this tree was scarce, it was formerly
forbidden, under heavy penalties, to cut down the Yew for
any other purpose than to make bows of the wood. The
Swiss mountaineers call it “ William’s tree,” in memory
of William Tell.

The Yew, like the Holly, makes an excellent evergreen
hedge—close, dark green, and beautiful when clad in the
rich scarlet berries. We desire, however, rather to see
this tree naturalized in our gardens and lawns as an
evergreen tree of the first class, than in any other form.
Judging from specimens which we have growing in our
own grounds, we should consider it quite hardy anywhere
south of the 41° of latitude. And although it is somewhat
slow in its growth, yet, like many other evergreens, it is as
beautiful when a small bush or a thrifty young tree, as it is
venerable and picturesque when ages or even centuries
have witnessed its never failing verdure. It appears to
grow most vigorously and thrive best on a rich and heavy
soil, and in situations rather shaded than exposed to a

burning sun.

There are several beautiful varieties of the Yew (Taxus
baccata) cultivated in the nurseries; the Irish Yew (T. 6.
fastigiata), remarkable for its dark green foliage, and very
handsome, upright growth, and the Yellow berried Yew
(T. b. fructo-flava), are the most ornamental.

The North American Yew (T. canadensis) is a low

EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 311

trailing shrub, scarcely rising above the height of four or
six feet, though the branches extend to a considerable
distance. In foliage, berries, etc., it so strongly resembles
the European plant, that many botanists consider it only a
dwarf variety. The leaves are nevertheless shorter and
narrower, and the male flowers always solitary. It is
found in shady, rocky places, in the Highlands, and various
other localities from Canada to Virginia.

312 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

SECTION VI.

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS.

Value of this kind of Vegetation. Fine natural effects. The European [vy. The
Virginia Creeper. The Wild Grape Vine. The Bittersweet. The Trumpet Creeper.
The Pipe Vine, and the Clematis. The Wistarias. The Honeysuckles and Wood-
bines. The Jasmine and the Periploca. Remarks on the proper mode of introducing
vines. Beautiful effects of climbing plants in connexion with buildings.

Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine.
SHAKSPEARE.

INES and climbing plants are
objects full of interest for the Land-
scape Gardener, for they seem
endowed with the characteristics
of the graceful, the beautiful, and

the picturesque, in their luxuriant
and ever-varying forms. When judiciously introduced,
therefore, nothing can so easily give a spirited or graceful.
air to a fine or even an ordinary scene, as the various
plants which compose this group of the vegetable kingdom.
We refer particularly now to those which have woody
and perennial stems, as all annual or herbaceous stemmed
plants are too short-lived to afford any lasting or
permanent addition to the beauty of the lawn or plea-
sure-ground.

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 313

Climbing plants may be classed among the adventitious
beauties of trees. Who'has not often witnessed with
delight in our native forests, the striking beauty of a noble
tree, the old trunk and fantastic branches of which were
enwreathed with the luxuriant and pliant shoots and rich
foliage of some beautiful vine, clothing even its decayed
limbs with verdure, and hanging down in gay festoons or
loose negligent masses, waving to and fro in the air. The
European Ivy (Hedera Helix) is certainly one of the
finest, if not the very finest climbing plant (or more
properly, creeping vine, for by means of its little fibres or
rootlets on the stems, it will attach itself to trees, walks,
or any other substance), with which we are acquainted.
It possesses not only very fine dark green palmated foliage
in great abundance, but the foliage has that agreeable
property of being evergreen,—which, while it enhances
its value tenfold, is at the same time so rare among vines.
The yellow flowers of the Ivy are great favorites with
bees, from their honied sweetness ; they open in autumn,
and the berries ripen in the spring. When planted at the
root of a tree, it will often, if the head is not too thickly
clad with branches, ascend to the very topmost limbs ;
and its dark green foliage, wreathing itself about the old
and furrowed trunk, and hanging in careless drapery from
the lower branches, adds greatly to the elegance of even
the most admirable tree. Spenser describes the appear-
ance of the Ivy growing to the tops of the trees,

« Emongst the rest, the clamb’ring Ivie grew,
Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold,
Lest that the poplar happely should renew
Her brother’s strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew,
And paint with pallid green her buds of gold.”

314 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The fine contrasts between the dark coloring of the
leaves of the Ivy, and the vernal and autumnal tints of
the foliage of deciduous trees, are also highly pleasing.
Indeed this fine climbing plant may be turned to advantage
in another way ; in reclothing dead trees with verdure.
Sir T. D. Lauder says, that “trees often die from causes
which we cannot divine, and there is no one who is
master of extensive woods, who does not meet with many
such instances of unexpected and unaccountable mortality.
Of such dead individuals we have often availed ourselves,
and by planting Ivy at their roots, we have converted
them into more beautiful objects than they were when
arrayed in their own natural foliage.” ;

The Ivy is not only ornamental upon trees, but it is
also remarkably well adapted to ornament cottages, and
even large mansions, when allowed to grow upon the
walls, to which it will attach itself so firmly by the little
rootlets sent out from the branches, that it is almost
impossible to tear it off. On wooden buildings, it may
perhaps be injurious, by causing them to decay; but on
stone buildings, it fastens itself firmly, and holds both
stone and mortar together like a coat of cement. The
thick garniture of foliage with which it covers the surface,
excludes stormy weather, and has, therefore, a tendency
to preserve the walls, rather than accelerate their decay.
This vine is the inseparable accompaniment of the old
feudal castles and crumbling towers of Europe, and
borrows a great additional interest from the romance
and historical recollections connected with such spots.
Indeed half the interest, picturesque as well as poetical,
of those time-worn buildings, is conferred by this plant,
which seeks to bind together and adorn with something

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 315

of their former richness, the crumbling fragments that are
fast tottering to decay :—

« The Ivy, that staunchest and firmest friend,
* That hastens its succoring arm to lend
To the ruined fane where in youth it sprung,
And its pliant tendrils ih sport were flung.
When the sinking buttress and mouldering tower
Seem only the spectres of former power,
Then the Ivy clusters round the wall,
And for tapestry hangs in the moss-grown hall,
Striving in beauty and youth to dress
The desolate place in its loneliness.”
Romance or Nature.

The Ivy lives to a great age, if we may judge from the
specimens that overrun some of the oldest edifices of
Europe, which are said to have been covered with it for
centuries, and where the main stems are seen nearly as

large as the trunk of a middle sized tree.

«“ Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been ;
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade
From its hale and hearty green ;
The brave old plant in its lonely days,
Shall fatten upon the past ;
For the stateliest building man ean raise,

Is the Ivy’s food at last.”

The Ivy is not a native of America; nor is it by any
means a very common plant in our gardens, though we
know of no apology for the apparent neglect of so beautiful
a climber. It is hardy south of the latitude of 42°, and we
have seen it thriving in great luxuriance as far north as
Hyde Park, on the Hudson, eighty miles above New York.
One of the most beautiful growths of this plant, which has

316 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ever met our eyes, is that upon the old mansion in the
Botanic Garden at Philadelphia, built by the elder Bartram.
That picturesque and quaint stone building is beautifully
overrun by the most superb mantle of Ivy, that no one who
has once seen can fail to remember with admiration. The
dark grey of the stone-work is finely opposed by the rich
verdure of the plant, which falls away in openings here and
there, around the windows, and elsewhere. It never thrives
well if sutfered to ramble along the ground, but needs the
support of a tree, a frame, or a wall, to which it attaches
itself firmly, and grows with vigorous shoots. Bare walls
or fences may thus be clothed with verdure and beauty
equal to the living hedge, in a very short period of time, by
planting young Ivy roots at the base.

The most desirable varieties of the common Ivy are: the
Irish Ivy, with much larger foliage than the common sort,
and more rapid in its growth; the Silver-striped and the
Gold-striped leaved Ivy, both of which, though less vigorous,
are much admired for the singular color of their leaves.
The common English Ivy is more hardy than the others
in our climate.

Although, as we have said, the Ivy is not a native of this
country, yet we have an indigenous vine, which, at least
in summer, is not inferior to it. We refer to the Virginia
Creeper (Ampelopsis hederacea), which is often called the
American Ivy. The leaves are as large as the hand,
deeply divided into five lobes, and the blossoms are suc-
ceeded by handsome, dark blue berries. The Virginia
Creeper is a most luxuriant grower, and we have seen it
climbing to the extremities of trees 70 or 80 feet in height.
Like the Ivy it attaches itself to whatever it can lay hold
of, by the little rootlets which spring out of the branches ;

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 317

and its foliage, when it clothes thickly a high wall, or folds
itself in clustering wreaths around the trunk and branches
of an open tree, is extremely handsome and showy. Al-
though the leaves are not evergreen, like those of the Ivy,
yet in autumn they far surpass those of that plant in the
rich and gorgeous coloring which they then assume.
Numberless trees may be seen in the country by the road-
side, and in the woods, thus decked in autumn in the
borrowed glories of the Virginia Creeper; but we particu-
larly remember two as being remarkably striking objects ;
one, a wide-spread elm—the trunk and graceful diverging
branches completely clad in scarlet by this beautiful vine,
with which its own leaves harmonized well in their fine
deep yellow dress; the other, a tall and dense Cedar, through
whose dark green boughs gleamed the rich coloring of the
Virginia Creeper, like a half-concealed, though glowing
fire.

In the American forests nothing adds more to the beauty
of an occasional tree, than the tall canopy of verdure with
which it is often crowned by the wild Grape vine. There
its tall stems wind themselves about until they reach the
very summit of the tree, where they cluster it over, and
bask their broad bright green foliage in the sunbeams. As
if not content with this, they often completely overhang the
head of the tree, falling like ample drapery around on every
side, until they sweep the ground. We have seen very
beautiful effects produced in this way by the grape in its
wild state, and it may easily be imitated. The delicious
fragrance of these wild grape vines when in blossom, is
unsurpassed in delicacy ; and we can compare it to nothing
but the delightful perfume which exhales from a huge bed
of Mignonette in full bloom. The Bittersweet (Celastrus

318 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

scandens) is another well known climber, which ornaments
our wild trees. Its foliage is very bright and shining, and
the orange-colored seed-vessels which burst open, and dis-
play the crimson seeds in winter, are quite ornamental. It
winds itself very closely around the stem, however, and we
have known it to strangle or compress the bodies of young
trees so tightly as to put an end to their growth.

The Trumpet Creeper (Bignonia radicans) is a very
picturesque climbing plant. The stem is quite woody, and
often attains considerable size; the branches, like those of
the Ivy and Virginia Creeper, fasten themselves by the
roots thrown out. The leaves are pinnated, and the
flowers, which are borne in terminal clusters on the ends
of the young shoots about midsummer, are exceedingly
showy. They are tubes five or six inches long, shaped like
a trumpet, opening at the extremity, of a fine scarlet color
on the outside, and orange within. The Trumpet Creeper
is a native of Virginia, Carolina, and the states further
south, where it climbs up the loftiest trees. It is a great
favorite in the northern states as a climbing plant, and very
beautiful effects are sometimes produced by planting it at
the foot of a tall-stemmed tree, which it will completely
surround with a pillar of verdure, and render very orna-
mental by its little shoots, studded with noble blossoms.

One of the most singular and picturesque climbing shrubs
or plants which we cultivate, is the Pipe-vine, or Birthwort
(Aristolochia sipho). Itis a native of the Alleghany moun-
tains, and is one of the tallest of twining plants, growing
on the trees there to the height of 90 or 100 feet, though
in gardens it is often kept down to a frame of four or five
feet high. The leaves are of a noble size, being eight or

nine inches broad, and heart-shaped in outline. The

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 319

flowers, about an inch or a little more in length, are very
singular. They are dark yellow, spotted with brown, in
shape like a bent siphon-like tube, which opens at the ex-
tremity, the whole flower resembling, as close as possible,
avery small Dutchman’s pipe, whence the vine is frequently
so called by the country people. It flowers in the begin-
ning of summer, and the foliage, during the whole growing
season, has a very rich and luxuriant appearance. Aristo-
lochia tomentosa is a smaller species, with leaves and
flowers of less size, the former downy or hairy on the under
surface.

The various kinds of Clematis, though generally kept
within the precincts of the garden, are capable of adding
to the interest of the pleasure ground, when they are
planted so as to support themselves on the branches of
trees. The common White Clematis or Virgin’s Bower
(C. virginica) is one of the strongest growing kinds, often
embellishing with its pale white blossoms, the whole
interior and even the very tops of our forest trees in
the middle states. After these have fallen, they are
succeeded by large tufts of brown, hairy-like plumes,
appendages to the clusters of seeds, which give the whole
2 very unique and interesting look. The Wild Atragene,
with large purple flowers, which blossom early, has much
the same habit as the Clematis, to which, indeed, it is nearly
related. Among the finest foreign species of this genus
are, the Single and Double-flowered purple Clematis
(C. viticella and its varieties), which, though slender in their
stems, run to considerable height, are very pretty, and
blossom profusely. The sweet scented and the Japan
Clematis (C. flammula and C. florida), the former
very fragrant, and the latter beautiful, are perhaps too

320 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

tender, except for the garden, where they are highly
prized.

The Glycine or Wistaria (Wistaria pubescens) is a
very beautiful climbing plant, and adds much to the
gracefulness of trees, when trained so as to hang from
their lower branches. The leaves are pinnate, and the
licht purple flowers, which bloom in loose clusters like
those of the Locust, are universally admired. The
Chinese Wistaria (W. sinensis) is a very elegant species
of this plant, which appears to be quite hardy here; and
when loaded with its numerous large clusters of pendent
blossoms, is highly ornamental. It grows rapidly, and,
with but little care, will mount to a great height. These
vines with pinnated foliage, would be remarkably
appropriate when climbing up, and hanging from the
branches of such light airy trees as the Three-thorned
Acacia, the Locust, etc.

We must not forget to enumerate here the charming
family of the Honeysuckles; some of them are natives of
the old world, some of our own continent; and all of them
are common in our gardens, where they are universally
prized for their beauty and fragrance. In their native
localities they grow upon trees, and trail along the rocks.
The species which ascends to the greatest height, is the
common European Woodbine,* which twines around the
stems, and hangs from the ends of the longest branches of

trees :
“ Ag Woodbine weds the plant within her reach,

Rough Elm, or smooth-grained Ash, or glossy Beech,

In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays

Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays.”

CowPrer.
* Woodbind is the original name, derived from the habit of the plant of

winding itself around trees, and binding the branches together.

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 321

The Woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum) has separate,
opposite leaves, and buff-colored or paler yellow and red
blossoms. There is a variety, the common monthly
Woodbine, which produces its flowers all summer, and is
much the most valuable plant. Another (L. p. belgicum),
the Dutch Honeysuckle, blossoms quite early in spring ;
and a third (L. p. quercifolium) has leaves shaped like
those of the oak tree.

The finest of our native sorts are the Red and Yellow
trumpet Honeysuckle (L. sempervirens and L. flava),
which have the terminal leaves on each branch joined
together at the base, or perfoliate, making a single leaf.
They blossom in the greatest profusion during the whole
summer and autumn, and their rich blossom tubes, sprinkled
in numerous clusters over the exterior of the foliage, as
well as an abundance of scarlet berries in autumn, entitle
them to high regard. There is also avery strong and
vigorous species, called the Orange pubescent Honeysuckle
(L. pubescens), with large, hairy, ciliate leaves, and fine
large tawny or orange-colored flowers. It is a very
luxuriant plant in its habit, and a very distinct species to
the eye. All these native sorts have but very slight
fragrance.

‘ The Chinese twining Honeysuckle (L. flexuosa) is
certainly one of the finest of the genus. In the form of
the leaf it much resembles the common Woodbine ; but
the foliage is much darker colored, and is also sub-ever-
green, hanging on half the winter, and in sheltered spots,
even till spring. It blossoms when the plant is old, several
times during the summer, bearing an abundance of
beautiful flowers, open at the mouth, red outside, and

striped with red, white, or yellow within. It grows
21

322 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

remarkably fast, climbing to the very summit of trees in a
short time ; and the flowers, which first appear in June,
are deliciously fragrant. In all its varieties the Honey-
suckle is a charming plant, either to adorn the porch of the
cottage, the latticed bower of the garden—to both of which
spots they are especially dedicated—or to climb the stem
of the old forest tree, where—

“ With clasping tendrils it invests the branch,
Else unadorn’d, with many agay festoon,
And fragrant chaplet ; reeompensing well
The strength it borrows with the grace it lends.”

There it diffuses through the air a delicious breath, that
renders a walk beneath the shade of the tall trees doubly
delightful, while its flowers give a gaiety and brightness
to the park, which forest trees, producing usually but
inconspicuous blossoms, could not alone impart.

Some of the climbing Roses are very lovely objects in
the pleasure-grounds. Many of them, at the north, as the
Multifloras, Noisettes, etc., require some covering in the
winter, and are therefore better fitted for the garden. At
the south, where they are quite hardy, they are, however,
most luxuriant and splendid objects. But there are two
classes of Roses that are perfectly hardy climbers, and
may therefore be employed with great advantage by the
Landscape Gardener—the Michigan and the Boursalt trees.
The single Michigan is: a most compact and vigorous
grower, and often, in its wild haunts in the west, clambers
over the tops of tall forest trees, and decks them with its
abundant clusters of pale purple flowers. There are now
in our gardens several beautiful double varieties of this,
and among them, one, called Beauty of the Prairies, is

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 323

most admired for its large rich buds and blossoms of a deep
rose color.

The Boursalt roses are remarkable for their profusion of
flowers, and for their shining, reddish stems, with few
thorns. The common Purple or Crimson Boursalt is quite
a wonder of beauty in the latter part of May, when trained
on the wall of a cottage, being then literally covered with
blossoms ; and it is so hardy that scarcely a branch is ever
injured by the cold of winter. The Blush and the Elegans
are still richer and finer varieties of this class of roses, all
of which are well worthy of attention.

We have to regret that the inclemency of our winters
will not permit us to cultivate the White European
Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) out of the garden, as even
there it requires a slight protection in winter. Below the
latitude of Philadelphia, however, it will probably succeed
well. In the southern states they have a most lovely plant,
the Carolina Jasmine (Gelseminum), which hangs its
beautiful yellow flowers on the very tree tops, and the
woods there in spring are redolent with their perfume.

The connoisseur in vines will not forget the curious
Periploca, which grows very rapidly to the height of 40
or 50 feet, and bears numerous branches of very curious
brown or purple flowers in summer; or the Double-
blossoming Brambles, both pink and white, which often
make shoots of 20 or 30 feet long in a season, and bear
pretty clusters of double flowers in June. All these fine
climbers, and several others to be found in the catalogues,
may, in the hands of a person of taste, be made to
contribute in a wonderful degree to the variety, elegance,
and beauty of a country residence; and to neglect to
introduce them would be to refuse the aid of some of the

324. LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

most beautiful accessories that are capable of being com-
bined with trees, as well as with buildings, gardens, and
fences.

Some persons object to the growth of climbing plants
upon trees, that, by compressing the stems and tightening
themselves around the limbs of trees, they gradually check
their growth, and finally by preventing the expansion of
the trunk, put an end to the life of the tree. This, we
have no doubt, has been the case when young trees in the
full vigor of growth have been completely encompassed
and wound about with the strong growing woody creepers ;
but it so rarely happens (scarcely ever in the case of
middle-sized trees, on which vines are more generally
planted), that we consider the objection of no moment.
Indeed, were all this true, the management of the growth
of any vine, however luxuriant, is so completely within the
power of the cultivator, that by a very trifling annual
attention, he can entirely prevent the possibility of any
such injurious effects.

The reader must not imagine, from the remarks which
we have here made on the beauty and charms of climbing
plants, that we would desire to see every tree in an
extensive park wreathed about, and overhung with fantastic
vines and creepers. Such is by no means our intention.
We should consider such a proceeding something in the
worst possible taste. There are some trees whose rugged
and ungraceful forms would refuse all such accompani-
ment ; and others from whose dignity and majesty it would
be improper to detract even by adding the gracefulness of the
loveliest vine. Such, too, is never the case in nature, as
for one tree decked in this manner we see a hundred which
are not, and the very rarity of the example imparts

—

VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 325

additional beauty and interest to it when it appears. This
should be the case in all artificial plantations ; and he who
has a true and lively feeling for the beautiful and pictur-
esque, will easily understand at a glance where these
expressions will be strengthened or weakened by the
addition of more grace and elegance. A few scattered
trees here and there, with whose forms the plans adopted
harmonize, draped and festooned with the most appropriate
climbing plants, will be all that can be properly introduced
in any scene, unless it be of a very artificial character ;
but even these additional accessories, simple as they may
seem, often produce an effect singularly beautiful, which
shows how much in real landscape, as well as in painting,
depends upon a few finishing touches to the scene.
Although we are not now writing of buildings, it is not
inappropriate here to remark how much may be done in
the country, and indeed even in town, by using vines and
creepers to decorate buildings. The cottage in this country
too rarely conveys the idea of comfort and happiness which
we wish to attach to such a habitation, and chiefly because
so often it stands bleak, solitary, and exposed to every ray
of our summer sun, with a scanty robe of foliage to shelter
it. How different such edifices, however humble, become
when the porch is overhung with climbing plants,—when
the blushing rose-buds peep in at the window sill, or the
ripe purple clusters of the grape hang down about the
eaves, those who have seen the better cottages of England
well know. Very little care and trifling expense will
procure all the additional beauty ; and it is truly wonderful
how much so little once done, adds to the happiness of the
inmates. Every man feels prouder of his home when it is
a pleasant spot for the eye to rest upon, than when it is

326 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

situated in a desert, or overgrown with weeds. Besides
this, tasteful embellishment has a tendency to refine the
feelings of every member of the family ; and every leisure
hour spent in rendering more lovely and agreeable even
the humblest cottage, is infinitely better employed than in
lounging about in idle and useless dissipation.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 327

SECTION VII.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS.

Nature of operations on Ground. ‘Treatment of flowing and irregular surfaces to
heighten their expression ; flats, or level surfaces. Rocks, as materials in Landscape.
Laying out Roads and Walks: Directions for the Approach: Rules by Repton. The
Drive, and minor walks. The introduction of fences and verdant hedges.

“‘ Strength may wield the ponderous spade,
May turn the clod and wheel the compost home ;
But elegance, chief grace the garden shows,

And most attractive, is the fair result

Of thought, the creature of a polished mind.”

CowPrer.

operations of the leveller rarely extending below two or
three feet of the surface; but the effect produced by a
given quantity of labor expended upon it, is generally
much less than when the same has been bestowed in
the formation of plantations, or the erection of buildings.
The achievements of art upon ground appear so trifling,
too, when we behold the apparent facility with which
nature has arranged it in such a variety of forms, that
the former sink into insignificance when compared with
the latter.

For these reasons, the operations to be performed

328 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

upon ground in this country, will generally be limited
to the neighborhood of the house, or the scenery directly
under the eye. Here, by judicious levelling and smooth-
ing in some cases, or by raising gentle eminences with
interposing hollows in others, much may be done at a
moderate expense, to improve the beauty of the surround-
ing landscape.

It is, however, fortunately the case, that in the modern
style of landscape improvement, extensive and costly
operations upon ground are very seldom needed. By
the aid of plantations arranged as we have already
suggested, much may be done to soften too great
inequality of surface, as well as to heighten the apparent
magnitude of gentle undulations. The art of the
improver, when employed upon this material, will,
therefore, be directed to the production of negative,
rather than positive effects,—to the removal of existing
faults or blemishes, rather than to the creation of an
entirely new and artificial surface.

To pursue this method with success, it is necessary
that he should refer constantly to the principle which
we suggested in the commencement of our remarks: the
preservation of the natural character of the scene, or, we
may here add, the heightening of the character intended
for the form of the surface. We have already remarked
that scenes abounding in natural beauty were chiefly
characterized by gentle undulations of surface, and smooth
easy transitions from the level plain to the softly swelling
hill or flowing hollow ; and that, on the contrary, highly
picturesque scenes exhibited a more irregular and broken
surface, abounding with abrupt transitions, and more

strongly marked elevations and depressions.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKs. 329

In a scene expressive of simple or graceful beauty,
where the surface is more or less undulating, the first
proceeding of the improver will be to remove any
accidental or natural deformity which may interfere with
that expression. Such are unsightly ridges of earth, small
lumpish hills, the ragged elevations where old fences have
been removed, or deep furrows created by the former
action of the plough. If there are any uncouth pits or
ugly hollows, such must be either filled up, or concealed
by plantations, and all excrescences that interfere with the
prevailing expression of the whole should be removed.

In the next place, the improver will examine the
formation of the ground, as it appears naturally. If too
rugged,—the sweeps and undulations sometimes easy and
beautiful, but at others hard and disconnected,—he will
endeavor to soften and remove this inequality. This will
be easily executed if some of the eminences are broken
into too high, sudden, and abrupt hills, by carefully lower-
ing them into more graceful elevations, and placing the
superfluous earth in the adjacent hollows: proper regard
being paid to portions of the scene already pleasing, by pro-
ducing such a surface as will connect itself naturally with the
same, when the improvements shall be entirely completed.

Should the surface, on the contrary, be somewhat
broken or undulating, but not distinctly so, appearing
rather heavy and undecided between a level and finely
varied ground, the operations must be directed in such a
manner as to increase the boldness of the whole. The
ground of a country residence is often brought into such
a state by the continued action of the plough at some
former period, which has gradually levelled down the
gentle eminences and filled up the hollows, till in some

330 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

places it appears scarcely struggling out of a level. The
course is then obvious; the superfluous earth which chokes
up the valleys, must be removed again to the neighboring
hills, where it belongs, when the natural beauty of the
ground will be restored. This is effected with compara-
tive facility, as every foot of surface taken from the
depression, adds by removal two feet to the height of the
adjoining elevation.

The improvement of picturesque surfaces must proceed
in a similar manner. When a surface is naturally and
truly picturesque, art will add little or nothing to its effect.
It will rather therefore endeavor to produce a perfect
whole, and a connexion between the various parts, than
to disturb the existing features. In the vicinity of the
house, the artist will soften down that boldness and
inequality which, if too great, might interfere both with
convenience and the beauty of utility, which must there be
constantly kept in view. Otherwise, the beauty of
picturesque surfaces may be often heightened by various
means within our reach; such as increasing the abruptness
of surface by taking away a few feet of earth, or by adding
other picturesque irregularities, which by connexion may
strengthen the expression of the whole.

Mr. Price has remarked, that “the ugliest ground is
that which has neither the beauty of smoothness, verdure,
and gentle undulation, nor the picturesqueness of bold and
sudden breaks, and varied tints of soil: of such kind, is
ground that has been disturbed and left in that unfinished
state: as in a rough ploughed field run to sward.”* Such
ground it i$ often difficult to restore to a picturesque state,

even when that was its previous expression. But it is not

* Essay on the Picturesque, i. 193.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 83]

impossible to do so, for it must be remembered that it is not
by forming the surface alone that nature renders it
picturesque, but also by the accessories and accompa-
niments which she liberally bestows upon the surface when
once formed. These are, vegetation, trees, rocks, etc.,
which, with the influence of time, will often render many
a scene, that, stripped of its enriching drapery, would be
positively harsh and ugly, extremely picturesque, or
strikingly beautiful. Proofs of this will occur to every one
who will contrast in his mind the appearance of a steep
clayey river bank, or even pit, when bare, raw, and
verdureless, and the same objects when nature or art has
clothed them with a luxuriant and diversified garniture of
trees, shrubs, and plants. In the former case, all was
positively ugly and displeasing to the eye of taste ; in the
latter, all is picturesque and harmonious.

A perfect flat, or level surface, is often the most difficult
to improve of any description of ground. In some cases,
as in the example of a very large park, with an immense
building, a level surface may be in excellent keeping, giving
an air of grandeur to the whole scene: for both the
simplicity and the wide extent of a level plain in sucha
situation, would be highly expressive of grandeur when
united to a fine pile of building. But ordinarily, a flat
surface is extremely dull and uninteresting. One unbroken
plain of green is spread before the eye, varied by none of
those changing lights and shadows that belong to a finely
undulating lawn. It is true that this affects the mind
differently in certain situations, as a broad plain is a
delightful contrast and source of repose in a mountainous
country. But we here speak of the greater part of the
surface of the United States, where country seats are

3e2 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

located, and where it will be found that a diversified
surface is greatly to be preferred to a dead level.

Where such a level exists, in some situations, it is almost
impossible to improve it much. When, for illustration, the
whole surrounding country is equally tame and flat, the
creation by artificial means, of undulations, hills, or hollows
in a park, would be in such evident contradiction to the
natural formation, that the eye would at once detect it as
a deception, harmonizing badly with general nature. The
best that can be done in such cases, is, perhaps, to produce
the greatest possible beauty by plantations and buildings,
and not to attempt any alterations of surface, which would
be insignificant and absurd.

When, however, this is not the case, but the grounds
themselves, though nearly level, are surrounded by more
bold and spirited variations of surface, a great deal may be
effected. In those portions of the grounds nearest the sur-
rounding inequalities, the latter may be apparently carried
into the former, and the artificial sweeps, breaks, or undu-
lations in the park may be so connected with each other,
and with the neighboring irregularities, as to produce the
effect of accordant art joined to the charm of natural
expression.

The error into which inexperienced improvers are con-
stantly liable to fall, is a want of breadth and extent in their
designs; which latter, when executed, are so feeble as to
be full of ittleness, out of keeping with the magnitude of
the surrounding scene. Their designs, like the sketches
of a novice in drawing, are cramped and meagre. This is
exemplified in ground by their producing, instead of easy
undulations, nothing but a succession of short sweeps and
hillocks like waves in the ocean. Now the most beautiful

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 333

variation in ground is undoubtedly that of gradually vary-
ing lines and insensible transitions of surface, and these
should correspond in magnitude and breadth to the size and
style of the place. Such surfaces are full of the flowing
lines and rounded smoothness which Burke considers
-characteristic of beauty, or the long undulations exhibit
the outlines of Hogarth’s favorite line of grace.

In places of large extent there may be scenes in different
portions of the park of totally different character ; one sim-
ply beautiful, abounding with graceful and flowing lines,
and another highly picturesque, and full of spirited breaks
and variations. Such often form very pleasing and striking
contrasts to each other, and should therefore, by all means,
be preserved: but they should also be rendered distinct by
their own surrounding plantations, else much of their effect
as a whole, when separately considered, will be lost upon
the spectator. For it should be remembered the mind is
incapable of appreciating or doing justice to two distinct
and dissimilar expressions at the same time. Whatever be
the scene to be improved, therefore, it should be taken by
itself and considered as a whole, if the eye command that
scene alone. Then the improver can proceed on the prin-
ciple that every piece of ground is distinguished by certain
properties: it is either tame or bold, graceful or rude, con-
tinued or broken ; and if any variety inconsistent with these
expressions be obtruded, it has no other effect than to
weaken one idea without raising another. “ The insipidity
of a flat is not taken away by a few scattered hillocks; a
continuation of uneven ground can alone give the idea of
irregularity. A large, deep, abrupt break, among easy
swells and falls, seems at best but a piece left unfinished,
and which ought to have been softened; it is not more

334 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

natural because it is more rude. On the other hand, a fine
small polished form, in the midst of rough, mis-shapen
ground, though more elegant than all about it, is generally
no better than a patch, itself disgraced and disfiguring the
scene. A thousand instances might be added to show that
the prevailing idea ought to pervade every part, so far at
least indispensably, as to exclude whatever distracts it,
and as much further as possible to accommodate the
character of the ground to that of the scene to which it
belongs.”*

Rocks, either in detached fragments or large masses,
enter into the composition of many scenes, and sometimes
have an excellent effect. Indeed much of the spirit of
picturesque scenery is often owing to the bold projections
made by rocks in various forms. An overhanging cliff, or
steep precipice, a moss-covered rocky bank, or even a group
of rocks on a ledge, from which springs a tuft of trees and
shrubs—all these give strength to a picturesque scene.
Their effect may often be rendered more striking by art;
sometimes by removing the earth or loose stones from the
bottom of the precipice, so as greatly to increase its apparent
height—for the perpendicular position is the finest in which
rocks can be viewed. At other times the effect of a con-
tinuous range of rocks may be much improved by planting
the summit, and making occasional breaks of verdure in
the front surface.

Rocks which are too apparent, and which cannot be

* Mr. Whately has given such minute and excellent details in relation to
this subject, in his Observations on Modern Gardening, that we gladly refer
the reader who desires to pursue this subject further, to that work: which
indeed is so unexceptionable in style and good taste, that Alison has frequently
quoted it in illustration of his admirable Essay on Taste.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 335

removed, may be concealed with trees and vegetation, or
partially covered with vines and creepers. The latter often
have a beautiful effect in picturesque scenery, and we have
seen very charming pictures formed of over-arching cliffs
and groups of rock, upon which hung and rambled in
luxuriant profusion, a rich mixture of climbing plants.
Where rocks thus accidentally occur in beautiful scenes,
to which they, if left bare, would be inimical, they may be
wonderfully softened and brought into keeping by a cover-
ing of the honeysuckle, the Ivy, the Virginia creeper, and
other species of the gayest and most luxuriant flowering
vines.

Loose and detached fragments of rocks can never be
permitted to lie scattered about the lawn in any style. In
a scene expressive of graceful beauty, of course they would
be entirely out of place: and in a picturesque scene, they
should only be suffered to remain in spots where they have
some evident connexion with larger masses. If they were
allowed to lie loosely around, they would only give an air
of confused wildness, opposed to everything like the ele-
gance of tasteful art or the comfort of a country residence ;
but if only seen in particular spots where they evidently
belong, they will, by contrast, give force and spirit to the
whole. We do not now speak of large rounded boulders
or smooth stones, such as are seen lying about the soil in
some of our valley tracts, as such are void of interest, and,
unless they are large, or in some degree remarkable, they
ought to be at once removed out of the way. Character-
istic and picturesque rocks, are those with firm, rugged, and
distinct outlines, externally covered with a coating of
weather stains, dark lichens, or mosses, and which meet
the eye with a mellow and softened tone of color.

336 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Roads and walks are so directly connected with opera-
tions on the surface of the ground, and with the disposition
of plantations, which we have already made familiar to the
reader, that we shall introduce in this place a few remarks
relative to their direction and formation. A French writer
has remarked of them that they are “des rubans qui attachent
le bouquet,’ and they certainly serve as the connecting
medium between the different parts of the estate, as well as
the means of displaying its various beauties, peculiarities,
and finest points of prospect.

The Approach is by far the most important of these
routes. It is the private road, leading from the public
highway, directly to the house itself. It should therefore
bear a proportionate breadth and size, and exhibit marks
of good keeping, in accordance with the dignity of the
mansion.

In the ancient style of gardening, the Approach was so
formed as to enter directly in front of the house, affording
a full view of that portion of the edifice, and no other. A
line drawn as directly as possible, and evenly bordered on
each side with a tall avenue of trees, was the whole
expenditure of art necessary in its formation. It is true,
the simplicity of design was often more than counter-
balanced by the difficulty of levelling, grading, and altering
the surface, necessary to please the geometric eye ; but the
rules were as plain and unchangeable, as the lines were
parallel and undeviating.

In the present more advanced state of Landscape
Gardening, the formation of the Approach has become
equally a matter of artistical skill with other details of the
art. The house is generally so approached, that the eye

shall first meet it in an angular direction, displaying not

— a —
:- * - :

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 337

only the beauty of the architectural facade but also one
of the end elevations, thus giving a more complete idea of
the size, character, or elegance of the building: and
instead of leading in a direct line from the gate to the
house, it curves in easy lines through certain portions of
the park or lawn, until it reaches that object.

If the point where the Approach is to start from the
highway be not already determined past alteration, it
should be so chosen as to afford a sufficient drive through
the grounds before arriving at the house, to give the
stranger some idea of the extent of the whole property : to
allow an agreeable diversity of surface over which to lead
it: and lastly in such a manner as not to interfere with the
convenience of ready access to and from the mansion.

This point being decided, and the other being the man-
sion and adjacent buildings, it remains to lay out the road
in such gradual curves as will appear easy and graceful,
without verging into rapid turns or formal stiffness. Since
the modern style has become partially known and adopted
here, some persons appear to have supposed that nature
“has a horror of straight lines,’ and consequently,
believing that they could not possibly err, they immediately
ran into the other extreme, filling their grounds with zig-
zag and regularly serpentine roads, still more horrible:
which can only be compared to the contortions of a
wounded snake dragging its way slowly over the earth.

There are two guiding principles which have been laid
down for the formation of Approach roads. The first, that
the curves should never be so great, or lead over surfaces
so unequal, as to make it disagreeable to drive upon them ;
and the second, that the road should never curve without

some reason, either real or apparent.
99

338 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The most natural method of forming a winding Approach
where the ground is gently undulating, is to follow, in some
degree, the depressions of surface, and to curve round the
eminences. This is an excellent method, so long as it does
not lead us in too circuitous a direction, nor, as we before
hinted, make the road itself too uneven. When either of
these happens, the easy, gradual flow of the curve in the
proper direction, must be, maintained by levelling or
grading, to produce the proper surface.

Nothing can be more unmeaning than to see an Ap-
proach, or any description of road, winding hither and
thither, through an extensive level lawn, towards the
house, without the least apparent reason for the curves.
Happily, we are not, therefore, obliged to return to the
straight line; but gradual curves may always be so ar-
ranged as to’ appear necessarily to wind round the groups of
trees, which otherwise would stand in the way. Wherever
a bend in the road is intended, a cluster or group of
greater or less size and breadth, proportionate to the
curve, should be placed in the projection formed. These
trees, as soon as they attain some size, if they are properly
arranged, we may suppose to have originally stood there,
and the road naturally to have curved, to avoid destroying
them. t

This arrangement of trees bordering an extended
Approach road, in connexion with the various other
groups, masses, and single trees, in the adjacent lawn, will
in most cases have the effect of concealing the house from
the spectator approaching it, except, perhaps, from one or
two points. It has, therefore, been considered a matter

worthy of consideration, at what point or points the first

_ ie aS j , "

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 339

view of the house shall be obtained. If seen at too great
a distance, as in the case of a large estate, it may appear
more diminutive and of less magnitude than it should ; or,
if first viewed at some other position, it may strike the
eye of a stranger, at that point, unfavorably. The best,
and indeed the only way to decide the matter, is to ge
over the whole ground covered by the Approach route
carefully, and select a spot or spots sufficiently near to
give the most favorable and striking view of the house
itself. This, if openings are to be made, can only be done
in winter ; but when the ground is to be newly planted, it
may be prosecuted at any season.

The late Mr. Repton, who was one of the most cele-
brated English practical landscape gardeners, has laid
down in one of his works, the following rules on the
subject, which we quote, not as applying in all cases, but
to show what are generally thought the principal requisites
of this road in the modern style.

First. It ought to be a road to the house, and to that
principally. ;

Secondly. If it be not naturally the nearest road
possible, it ought artificially to be made to appear so.

Thirdly. The artificial obstacles which make this road
the nearest, ought to appear natural.

Fourthly. Where an approach quits the high road, it
ought not to break from it at right angles, or in such a
manner as to rob the entrance of importance, but rather
at some bend of the public road, from which a lodge or
gate may be more conspicuous ; and where the high road
may appear to branch from the approach, rather than the
approach from the high road.

340 - LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Fifthly. After the approach enters the park, it should
avoid skirting along its boundary, which betrays the want
of extent or unity of property.

Sizxthly. The house, unless very large and magnificent,
should not be seen at so great a distance as to make it
appear much less than it really is.

Seventhly. The first view of the house should be from
the most pleasing point of sight.

Eighthly. As soon as the house is visible from the
approach, there should be no temptation to quit it (which
will ever be the case if the road be at all circuitous),
unless sufficient obstacles, such as water or inaccessible
ground, appear to justify its course.*

Although there are many situations where these rules
must be greatly modified in practice, yet the improver will
do well to bear them in mind, as it is infinitely more easy
to make occasional deviations from general rules, than to
carry out a tasteful improvement without any guiding
principles.

There are many fine country residences on the banks of
the Hudson, Connecticut, and other rivers, where the pro-
prietors are often much perplexed and puzzled by the
situation of their houses; the building presenting really
two fronts, while they appear to desire only one. Such is
the case when the estate is situated between the public
road on one side, and the river on the other; and we have
often seen the Approach artificially tortured into a long
circuitous route, in order finally to arrive at what the
proprietor considers the true front, viz. the side nearest
the river. When a building is so situated, much the most

* Repton’s Inquiry into the Changes of Taste in Landscape Gardening, p. 109.

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKs. 341

elegant effect is produced by having two fronts: one, the
entrance front, with the porch or portico nearest the road,
and the other, the river front, facing the water. The beauty
of the whole is often surprisingly enhanced by this arrange-
ment, for the visitor, after passing by the Approach through
a considerable portion of the grounds, with perhaps but
slight and partial glimpses of the river, is most agreeably
surprised on entering the house, and looking from the
drawing-rdom windows of the other front, to behold another
beautiful scene totally different from the last, enriched and
ennobled by the wide-spread sheet of water before him.
Much of the effect produced by this agreeable surprise
from the interior, it will readily be seen, would be lost, if
the stranger had already driven round and alighted on the
river front.

The Drive is a variety of road rarely seen among us, yet
which may be made a very agreeable feature in some of
our country residences, at a small expense. It is intended
for exercise more secluded than that upon the public road,
and to show the interesting portions of the place from the
carriage, or on horseback. Of course it can only be formed
upon places of considerable extent; but it enhances the
enjoyment of such places very highly, in the estimation of
those who are fond of equestrian exercises. It generally
commences where the approach terminates, viz. near the
house: and from thence, proeeeds in the same easy curvi-
linear manner through various parts of the grounds, farm,
or estate. Sometimes it sweeps through the pleasure
grounds, and returns along the very beach of the river,
beneath the fine overhanging foliage of its projecting bank ;
sometimes it proceeds towards some favorite point of

view, or interesting spot on the landscape ; or at others it

342 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

leaves the lawn and traverses the farm, giving the pro-
prietor an opportunity to examine his crops, or exhibit his
agricultural resources to his friends.

Walks are laid out for purposes similar to Drives, but
are much more common, and may be introduced into every
scene, however limited. They are intended solely for
promenades or exercise on foot, and should therefore be
dry and firm, if possible, at all seasons when it is desirable
to use them. Some may be open to the south, sheltered
with evergreens, and made dry and hard for a warm pro-
menade in winter; others formed of closely mown turf,
and thickly shaded by a leafy canopy of verdure, for a cool
retreat in the midst of summer. Others again may lead to
some sequestered spot, and terminate in a secluded rustic
seat, or conduct to some shaded dell or rugged eminence,
where an extensive prospect can be enjoyed. Indeed, the
genius of the place must suggest the direction, length, and
number of the walks to be laid out, as no fixed rules can be
imposed in a subject so everchanging and different. It
should, however, never be forgotten, that the walk ought
always to correspond to the scene it traverses, being rough
where the latter is wild and picturesque, sometimes scarcely
differing from a common footpath, and more polished as
the surrounding objects show evidences of culture and high
keeping. In direction, like the approach, it should take
easy flowing curves, though it may often turn more
abruptly at the interposition of an obstacle. The chief
beauty of curved and bending lines in walks, lies in the
new scenes which by means of them are opened to the
eye. In the straight walk of half a mile the whole i$ seen
at a glance, and there is too often but little to excite the
spectator to pursue the search ; but in the modern style, at

Ravine Walk at Blithewood.

350

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKS. 3438

every few rods, a new turn in the walk opens a new
prospect to the beholder, and “leads the eye,” as Hogarth
graphically expressed it, “a kind of wanton chase,” con-

tinually affording new refreshment and variety.

Fences are often among the most unsightly and offensive +
objects in our country seats. Some persons appear to
have a passion for subdividing their grounds into a great
number of fields; a process which is scarcely ever
advisable even in common farms, but for which there can
be no apology in elegant residences. The close proximity
of fences to the house gives the whole place a confined
and mean character. “The mind,” says Repton, “feels a
certain disgust under .a sense of confinement in any
situation, howeyer beautiful.” A wide-spread lawn, on the
contrary, where no boundaries are conspicuous, conveys
an impression of ample extent and space for enjoyment.
It is frequently the case that, on that side of the house
nearest the outbuildings, fences are, for convenience,
brought in its close neighborhood, and here they are easily
concealed by plantations ; but on the other sides, open and
unobstructed views should be preserved, by removing all
barriers not absolutely necessary.

Nothing is more common, in the places of cockneys who
become inhabitants of the country, than a display imme-
diately around the dwelling of a spruce paling of carpentry,
neatly made, and painted white or green ; an abomination
among the fresh fields, of which no person of taste could
be guilty. To fence off a small plot around a fine house,
in the midst of a lawn of fifty acres, is a perversity which
we could never reconcile, with even the lowest perception
of beauty. An old stone wall covered with creepers and
climbing plants, may become a picturesque barrier a

344 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

thousand times superior to such a fence. But there is
never one instance in a thousand where any barrier is
necessary. Where it is desirable to separate the house |
from the level grass of the lawn, let it be done by an
architectural terrace of stone, or a raised platform of
gravel supported by turf, which will confer importance and
dignity upon the building, instead of giving it a petty and
trifling expression.

Verdant hedges are elegant substitutes for stone or
wooden fences, and we are surprised that their use has not
been hitherto more general. We have ourselves been
making experiments for the last ten years with various
hedge-plants, and have succeeded in obtaining some
hedges which are now highly admired. Five or six years
will, in this climate, under proper care, be sufficient to
produce hedges of great beauty, capable of withstanding
the attacks of every kind of cattle ; barriers, too, which
will outlast many generations. The common Arbor Vite
(or flat Cedar), which grows in great abundance in many
districts, forms one of the most superb hedges, without the
least care in trimming; the foliage growing thickly down
to the very ground, and being evergreen, the hedge
remains clothed the whole year. Our common Thorns,
and in particular those known in the nurseries as the
Newcastle and Washington thorns, form hedges of great
strength and beauty. They are indeed much better
adapted to this climate than the English Hawthorn, which
often suffers from the unclouded radiance of our midsummer
sun. In autumn, too, it loses its foliage much sooner than
our native sorts, some of which assume a brilliant scarlet
when the foliage is fading in autumn. In New England,
the Buckthorn is preferred from its rapid and luxuriant

TREATMENT OF GROUND.—FORMATION OF WALKs. 3845

growth ;* and in the middle states, the Maclura, or Osage
Orange, is becoming a favorite for its glossy and polished
foliage. The Privet, or Prim, is a rapid growing shrub,
well fitted for interior divisions. Picturesque hedges are
easily formed by intermingling a variety of flowering
shrubs, sweet briers, etc., and allowing the whole to grow
together in rich masses. For this purpose the Michigan
rose is admirably adapted at the north, and the Cherokee
rose at the south. In all cases where hedges are employed
in the natural style of landscape (and not in close con-
nexion with highly artificial objects, buildings, etc.), a
more agreeable effect will be produced by allowing the
hedge to grow somewhat irregular in form, or varying it
by planting near it other small trees and shrubs to break
the outline, than by clipping it in even and formal lines.
Hedges may be obtained in a single season, by planting
long shoots of the osier willow, or any other tree which
throws out roots easily from cuttings.

A simple and pleasing barrier, in good keeping with -
cottage residences, may be formed of rustic work, as it is
termed. For this purpose, stout rods of any of our native
forest trees are chosen (Cedar being preferable) with the
bark on, six to ten feet in length ; these are sharpened and
driven into the ground in the form of a lattice, or wrought
into any figures of trellis that the fancy may suggest.
When covered with luxuriant vines and climbing plants,
such a barrier is often admirable for its richness and

variety.

* The Buckthorn is perhaps the best plant where a thick screen is very
speedily desired. It is not liable to the attack of insects ; grows very thickly
at the bottom, at once; and will make an efficient screen sooner than almost
any other plant. :

346 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

The sunken fence, fosse, or ha-ha, is an English in-
vention, used in separating that portion of the lawn near
the house, from the part grazed by deer or cattle, and is
only a ditch sufficiently wide and deep to render com-
munication difficult on opposite sides. When the ground
slopes from the house, such a sunk fence is invisible to a
person near the latter, and answers the purpose of a
barrier without being in the least obtrusive.

In a succeeding section we shall refer to terraces with
their parapets, which are by far the most elegant barriers
for a highly decorated flower garden, or for the purpose of
maintaining a proper connexion between the house and the
grounds, a subject which is scarcely at all attended to, or

its importance even recognised as yet among us.

iio ye.

TREATMENT OF WATER. 347

SECTION VIII.

TREATMENT OF WATER.

Beautiful effects of this element in nature. In what cases it is desirable to attempt the
formation of artificial pieces of water. Regular forms unpleasing. Directions for the
formation of ponds or lakes in the irregular manner. Study of natural lakes. Islands.

Planting the margin. Treatment of natural brooks and rivulets. Cascades and water-

falls. Legitimate sphere of the art in this department.

The dale

With woods o’erhung, and shagg’d with mossy rocks,
Whence on each hand the gushing waters play,

And down the rough ecaseade white-dashing fall,

Or gleam in lengthened vista through the trees.

THOMSON.

y HE delightful and captivating effects of

: b water in landscapes of every description,
nt ®” are universally known and admitted.
The beccdlass sea, the broad full river, the dashing noisy
brook, and the limpid meandering rivulet, are all possessed
of their peculiar charms ; and when combined with scenes
otherwise finely disposed and well wooded, they add a
hundred fold to their beauty. The soft and trembling
shadows of the surrounding trees and hills, as they fall
upon a placid sheet of water—the brilliant light which the
crystal surface reflects in pure sunshine, mirroring, too, at
times in its resplendent bosom, all the cerulean depth and

snowy whiteness of the overhanging sky, give it an almost

348 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

magical effect in a beautiful landscape. The murmur of
the babbling brook, that

« In linked sweetness long drawn out,”

falls upon the ear in some quiet secluded spot, is inex-
pressibly soothing and delightful to the mind; and the
deeper sound of the cascade that rushes, with an almost
musical dash, over its bed of moss-covered rock, is one of
the most fascinating of the many elements of enjoyment
in a fine country seat. The simplest or the most mono-
tonous view may be enlivened by the presence of water in
any considerable quantity ; and the most picturesque and
striking landscape will, by its addition, receive a new
.charm, inexpressibly enhancing all its former interest.
In short, as no place can he considered perfectly complete
without either a water view or water upon its own
grounds, wherever it does not so exist and can be easily
formed by artificial means, no man will neglect to take
advantage of so fine a source of embellishment as is this

element in some of its varied forms.

“ce

Fleuves, ruisseaux, beaux laces, claires fontaines,
Venez, portez partout la vie et la fraicheur ?

Ah! qui peut remplacer votre aspect enchanteur ?

De prés il nous amuse, et de loin nous invite: |

C’est le premier qu’on cherche, et le dernier qu’on quitte.
Vous fécondez les champs; vous répétez les cieux ;
Vous enchantez l’oreille, et vous charmez les yeux.”

In this country, where the progress of gardening and
improvements of this nature, is rather shown in a simple
and moderate embellishment of a large number of villas
and country seats, than by a lavish and profuse expen-
diture on a few entailed places, as in the residences of the
English nobility, the formation of large pieces of water

TREATMENT OF WATER. 349

at great cost and extreme labor, would be considered |
both absurd and uncalled for. Indeed, when nature has
so abundantly spread before us such an endless variety of
superb lakes, rivers, and streams of every size and descrip-
tion, the efforts of man to rival her great works by mere
imitation, would, in most cases, only become ludicrous by
contrast.

When, however, a number of perpetual springs cluster
together, or a rill, rivulet, or brook, runs through an estate
in such a manner as easily to be improved or developed
into an elegant expanse of water in any part of the
grounds, we should not hesitate to take advantage of so
fortunate a circumstance. Besides the additional beauty
conferred upon the whole place by such an improvement,
the proprietor may also derive an inducement from its
utility ; for the possession of a small lake, well stocked
with carp, trout, pickerel, or any other of the excellent
pond fish, which thrive and propagate extremely well in
clear fresh water, is a real advantage which no one will
undervalue.

There is no department of Landscape Gardening ‘which
appears to have been less understood in this country than
the management of water. Although there have not been
many attempts made in this way, yet the occasional efforts
that have been put forth in various parts of the country, in
the shape of square, circular, and oblong pools of water,
indicate a state of knowledge extremely meagre, in the art
of Landscape Gardening. The highest scale to which
these pieces of water rise in our estimation is that of
respectable horse-ponds ;—beautiful objects they certainly
are not. They are generally round or square, with
perfectly smooth, flat banks on every side, and resemble

350 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

in tameness and insipidity, a huge basin set down in the
middle of a green lawn. They are even, in most cases,
denied the advantage of shade, except perhaps occasionally
afew straggling trees can be said to fulfil that purpose ;
for richly tufted margins, and thickets of overhanging

shrubs, are accompaniments rare indeed.*

* Simple and easy as would appear the artificial imitation of these variations
of nature, yet to an unpractised hand and a tasteless mind, nothing is really
more difficult. To produce meagre right lines and geometrical forms is
extremely easy in any of the fine arts, but to give the grace, spirit, and variety
of nature, requires both tasteful perception and some practice; hence, in the
infancy of any art, the productions are characterized by extreme meagreness
and simplicity ;—of which the first efforts to draw the human figure or to form
artificial pieces of water, are good examples.

Brown, who was one of the early practitioners of the moder style abroad,
and who just saw far enough to lay aside the ancient formal method, without
appreciating nature sufficiently to be willing to take her for his model, once
disgraced half of the finest places in England with his tame, bald pieces of
artificial water, and round, formal clumps of trees. Mr. Knight, in his
elegant poem, “The Landscape,’ spiritedly rebuked this practice in the
following lines:—

« Shaved to the brink our brooks are taught to flow
Where no obtruding leaves or branches grow:
While clumps of shrubs bespot each winding vale
Open alike to every gleam and gale:

Each secret haunt and deep recess display’d,
And intricacy banished with its shade.

Hence, hence! thou haggard fiend, however call’d,
The meagre genius of the bare and bald ;

Thy spade and mattock here at length lay down,
And follow to the tomb, thy favorite, Brown ;
Thy favorite Brown, whose innovating hand

First dealt thy curses o’er this fertile land ;

First taught the walk in spiral forms to move,
And from their haunts the secret Dryads drove ;
With clumps bespotted o’er the mountain’s side,
And bade the stream ’twixt banks elose-shaven glide ;
Banish’d the thickets of high tow’ring wood
Which hung reflected o’er the glassy flood.”

TREATMENT OF WATER. 351

Lakes or ponds are the most beautiful forms in which
water can be displayed in the grounds of a country
residence.* They invariably produce their most pleasing
effects when they are below the level of the house; as, if
above, they are lost to the view, and if placed on a level
with the eye, they are seen to much less advantage. We
conceive that they should never be introduced where they
do not naturally exist, except with the concurrence of the
following circumstances. First, a sufficient quantity of
running water to maintain at all times an overflow, for
nothing can be more unpleasant than a stagnant pool, as
nothing is more delightful than pure, clear, limpid water ;
and secondly, some natural formation of ground, in which
the proposed water can be expanded, that will not only
make it appear natural, but diminish, a hundred fold, the
expense of formation.

The finest and most appropriate place to form a lake, is
in the bottom of a small valley, rather broad in proportion
to its length. The soil there will probably be found rather
clayey and retentive of moisture ; and the rill or brook, if
not already running through it, could doubtless be easily
diverted thither. There, by damming up the lower part
of the valley with a head of greater or less height, the water
may be thrown back so as to form the whole body of the
lake.

The first subject which will demand the attention, after
the spot has been selected for the lake or pond, and the

* Owing to the immense scale upon which nature displays this fine element
in North America, every sheet of water of moderate or small size is almost
universally called a pond. And many a beautiful, limpid, natural expanse,
which in England would be thought a charming lake, is here simply a pond.
The term may be equally correct, but it is by no means as elegant.

Bi) LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

height of the head and consequent depth of water deter-
mined upon, is the proposed form or outline of the whole.
And, as we have already rejected all regular and geometric
forms, in scenes where either natural or picturesque beauty
is supposed to predominate, we must turn our attention to
examples for imitation in another direction.

If, then, the improver will recur to the most beautiful
small natural lake within his reach, he will have a subject
to study and an example to copy well worthy of imitation.
If he examine minutely and carefully such a body of water,
with all its accompaniments, he will find that it is not only
delightfully wooded and overshadowed by a variety of |
vegetation of all heights, from the low sedge that grows
on its margin, to the tall tree that bends its branches over
its limpid wave ; but he will also perceive a striking pecu-
liarity in its irregular outline. This, he will observe, is
neither round, square, oblong, nor any modification of these
regular figures, but full of bays and projections, sinuosities,
and recesses of various forms and sizes, sometimes bold,
and reaching a considerable way out into the body of the
lake, at others, smaller and more varied in shape and con-
nexion. In the heights of the banks, too, he will probably
observe considerable variety. At some places, the shore
will steal gently and gradually away from the level of the
water, while at others it will rise suddenly and abruptly, in
banks more or less steep, irregular, and rugged. Rocks and
stones covered with mosses, will here and there jut out
from the banks, or lie along the margin of the water, and
the whole scene will be full of interest from the variety,
intricacy, and beauty of the various parts. If he will
accurately note in his mind all these varied forms—their

separate outlines, the way in which they blend into one

TREATMENT OF WATER. 353

another, and connect themselves together, and the effect
which, surrounding the water, they produce as a whole, he
will have some tolerably correct ideas of the way in which
an artificial lake ought to be formed.

Let him go still further now, in imagination, and suppose
the banks of this natural lake, without being otherwise
altered, entirely denuded of grass, shrubs, trees, and verdure
of every description, remaining characterized only by their
original form and outline ; this will give him a more com-
plete view of the method in which his labors must com-
mence; for uncouth and apparently mis-shapen as those
banks are and must be, when raw and unclothed, to exhibit
all their variety and play of light and shadow when verdant
and complete, so also must the original form of the banks
and margin of the piece of artificial water, in order finally
to assume.the beautiful or picturesque, be made to assume
outlines equally rough and harsh in their raw and incom-
plete state.

It occasionally happens, though rarely, that around the
hollow or valley where it is proposed to form the piece of
water, the ground rises in such irregular form, and is so
undulating, receding, and projecting in various parts, that
when the water is dammed up by the head below, the
natural outline formed by the banks already existing, is
sufficiently varied to produce a pleasing effect without much
further preparatory labor. This, when it occurs, is exceed-
ingly fortunate ; but the examples are so unfrequent, that
we must here make our suggestions upon a different sup-
position.

When, therefore, it is found that the form of the intended
lake would not be such as is desirable, it must be made so

by digging. In order to do this with any exactness the
23

354 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

improver should take his stand at that part of the ground
where the dam or head is to be formed, and raising his
levelling instrument to the exact height to which the
intended lake will rise, sweep round with his eye upon the
surrounding sides of the valley, and indicate by placing
marks there, the precise line to which the water will reach.
This can easily be done throughout the whole circumference
by a few changes of position.

When the outline is ascertained in this way, and marked
out, the improver can, with the occasional aid of the leveller,
easily determine where and how he can make alterations
and improvements. He will then excavate along the new
margin, until he makes the water line (as shown by the
instrument) penetrate to all the various bays, inlets, and
curves of the proposed lake. In making these irregular
variations, sometimes bold and striking, at others fainter
and less perceptible, he can be guided, as we have already
suggested, by no fixed rules, but such as he may deduce
from the operations of nature on the same materials, or by
imbuing his mind with the beauty of forms in graceful and
refined art. In highly polished scenery, elegant curves and
graceful sweeps should enter into the composition of the
outline ; but in wilder or more picturesque situations, more
irregular and abrupt variations will be found most suitable
and appropriate.

The intended water outline once fully traced and under-
stood, the workmen can now preceed to form the banks.
All this time the improver will keep in mind the supposed
appearance of the bank of a natural lake stripped of its
vegetation, etc., which will greatly assist him in his progress.
In some places the banks will rise but little from the water,
at others one or two feet, and at others perhaps three, four,

TREATMENT OF WATER. 355

or six times as much. This they will do, not in the same
manner in all portions of the outline, sloping away with a
like gradual rise on both sides, for this would inevitably
produce tameness and monotony, but in an irregular and
varied manner; sometimes falling back gradually, some-
times starting up perpendicularly, and again overhanging
the bed of the lake itself.

All this can be easily effected while the excavations of
those portions of the bed which require deepening are
going on. And the better portions of the soil obtained
from the latter, will serve to raise the banks when they are
too low.

It is of but little consequence how roughly and
irregularly the projections, elevations, etc., of the banks
and outlines are at first made, so that some general form
and connexion is preserved. The danger lies on the other
side, viz. in producing a whole too tame and insipid ; for
we have found by experience, how difficult it is to make
the best workmen understand how to operate in any other
way than in regular curves and straight lines. Besides,
newly moved earth, by settling and the influence of rains,
etc., tends, for some time, towards greater evenness and
equality of surface.

Mr. Price, in his unrivalled instructions for the creation
of pieces of artificial water, has suggested another
excellent method by which the outlines and banks of lakes
may be varied. This is, first, by cutting down the banks,
in some places nearest the water, perpendicularly, and then
undermining them. This will produce a gradual variation
in some parts, which, falling to pieces, will produce new
and irregular accidental outlines. When, by the action
of rain and frost, added to that of the water itself, large

356 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

fragments of mould tumble from the hollowed banks of
rivers or lakes, these fragments, by the accumulation of
other mould, often lose their rude and broken form, are
covered with the freshest grass, and enriched with tufts of
natural flowers ; and though detached from the bank, and
upon a lower level, still appear connected with it, and vary
its outline in the softest and most pleasing manner. As
fragments of the same kind will always be detached from
ground that is undermined, so by their means the same
effects may designedly be produced ; and they will suggest
numberless intricacies and varieties of a soft and pleasing,
as well as of a broken kind.

It will of course be well understood that we have here
not supposed our proposed lake to be located in a valley
that must be filled to the brim, or in a tame flat when the
water would rise to the same level as the adjacent ground.
In such situations there could be but little room for the
display of a high degree of picturesque beauty. On the
contrary, when the surrounding ground in many places
rises gradually, or is naturally higher than the proposed
level of the water, there is room for all the variety of banks
of various heights, form, and outline, which so spring out
of the neighboring undulations and eminences, and con-
nect themselves with them, as to appear perfectly natural
and in proper keeping.

In arranging these outlines and banks, we should study
the effect at the points from which they will generally be
viewed. Some pieces of water in valleys, are looked
down upon from other and higher parts of the demesne ;
others (and this is most generally the case) are only seen
from the adjoining walk, at some point or points where the
latter approaches the lake. They are most generally seen

TREATMENT OF WATER. 357

from one, and seldom from more than two sides. When a
lake is viewed from above, its contour should be studied
as a whole ; but when it is only seen from one or more
sides or points, the beauty of the coup d’@il from those
positions can often be greatly increased by some trifling
alterations in arrangement. <A piece of water which is
long and comparatively narrow, appears extremely different
in opposite points of view; if seen lengthwise from either
extremity, its apparent breadth and extent is much
increased ; while, if the spectator be placed on one side
and look across, it will seem narrow and insignificant.
Now, although the form of an artificial lake of moderate
size should never be much less in breadth than in length,
yet the contrary is sometimes unavoidably the case ; and
being so, we should by all means avail ourselves of those
well known laws if perspective, which will place them in
the best possible position, relative to the spectator.

If the improver desire to render his banks still more
picturesque, resembling the choicest mor¢eaux of natural
banks, he should go a step further in arranging his materials
before he introduces the water, or clothes the margin with
vegetation. In analysing the finest portions of natural
banks, it will be observed that their peculiar characteristics
often depend on other objects besides the mere ground of
the surrounding banks, and the trees and verdure with
which they are clothed. These are, rocks of various size,
forms, and colors, often projecting out of or holding up the
bank in various places ; stones sometimes imbedded in the
soil, sometimes lying loosely along the shore ; and lastly,
old stumps of trees with gnarled roots, whose decaying hues
are often extremely mellow and agreeable to the eye. All
these have much to do with the expression of a truly pic-

358 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

turesque bank, and cannot be excluded or taken away from
it without detracting largely from its character. There is
no reason, therefore, in an imitation of nature, why we
should not make use of all her materials to produce a similar
effect ; and although in the raw and rude state of the banks
at first, they may have a singular and rather outré aspect,
stuck round and decorated here and there with large rocks,
smaller stones, and old stumps of trees; yet it must be
remembered that this is only the chaotic state, from which
the new creation is to emerge more perfectly formed and
completed; and also that the appearance of these rocks
and stumps, when covered with mosses, and partially
overgrown with a profusion of luxuriant vegetation and
climbing plants, will be as beautifully picturesque after a
little time has elapsed, as it is now uncouth and uninviting.

Islands generally contribute greatly to the beauty of a
piece of water. They serve, still further, to increase the
variety of outline, and to break up the wide expanse of
liquid into secondary portions, without injuring the effect
of the whole. The striking contrast, too, between their
verdure, the color of their margins, composed of variously
tinted soils and stones, and the still, smooth water around
them,—softened and blended as this contrast is, by their
shadows reflected back from the limpid ‘element, gives
additional richness to the picture.

The distribution of islands in a lake or pond requires
some judgment. They will always appear most natural
when sufficiently near the shore, on either side, to maintain
in appearance some connexion with it. Although islands
do sometimes occur near the middle of natural lakes, yet
the effect is by no means good, as it not only breaks and
distracts the effects of the whole expanse by dividing it into

TREATMENT OF WATER. 359

two distinct parts, but it always indicates a shallowness or
want of depth where the water should be deepest.

There are two situations where it is universally admitted
that islands may be happily introduced. These are, at the
inlet and the exit of the body of water. In many cases
where the stream which supplies the lake is not remark-
able for size, and will add nothing to the appearance of the
whole view from the usual points of sight, it may be con-
cealed by an island or small group of islands, placed at
some little distance in front of it. The head or dam of a
lake, too, is often necessarily so formal and abrupt, that it
is difficult to make it appear natural and in good keeping
with the rest of the margin. The introduction of an island
or two, placed near the main shore, on either side, and
projecting as far as possible before the dam, will greatly
diminish this disagreeable formality, particularly if well
clothed with a rich tuft of shrubs and overhanging bushes.

Except in these two instances, islands should be
generally placed opposite the salient points of the banks,
or near those places where small breaks or promontories
run out into the water. In such situations, they will
increase the irregularity of the outline, and lend it
additional spirit and animation. Should they, on the other
hand, be seated in or near the marginal curve and indenta-
tions, they will only serve to clog up these recesses ; and
while their own figures are lost in these little bays where
they are hidden, by lessening the already existing irre-
gularities, they will render the whole outline tame and
spiritless.

On one or two of these small islands, little rustic
habitations, if it coincide with the taste of the proprietor,
may be made for different aquatic birds or water fowl,

360 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

which will much enliven the scene by their fine plumage.
Among these the swan is pre-eminent, for its beauty and
gracefulness. Abroad, they are the almost constant
accompaniments of water in the ground of country
residences ; and it cannot be denied that, floating about in
the limpid wave, with their snow-white plumage and
superbly curved necks, they are extremely elegant objects.

After having arranged the banks, reared up the islands,
and completely formed the bed of the proposed lake, the
improver will next proceed, at the proper period, to finish
his labors by clothing the newly formed ground, in various
parts, with vegetation. This may be done immediately, if
it be desirable ; or if the season be not favorable, it may be
deferred until the banks, and all the newly formed earth,
have had time to settle and assume their final forms, after
the dam has been closed, and the whole basin filled to its
intended height.

Planting the margins of pieces of water, if they should
be of much extent, must evidently proceed upon the same
leading principle that we have already laid down for
ornamental plantations in other situations. That is, there
must be trees of different heights and sizes, and underwood
and shrubs of lower growth, disposed sometimes singly, at
others in masses, groups, and thickets: in all of which
forms, connexion must be preserved, and the whole must be
made to blend well together, while the different sizes and
contours will prevent any sameness and confusion. On
the retreating dry banks, the taller and more sturdy
deciduous and evergreen trees, as the oak, ash, etc., may
be planted, and nearer by, the different willows, the elm,
the alder, and other trees that love a moister situation, will

thrive well. It is indispensably necessary in order to

TREATMENT OF WATER. 361

produce breadth of effect and strong rich contrasts, that
underwood should be employed to clothe many parts of the
banks. Without it, the stems of trees will appear loose
and straggling, and the screen will be so imperfect as to
allow a free passage for the vision inevery direction. For
this purpose, we have in all our woods, swamps, and along
our brooks, an abundance of hazels, hawthorns, alders,
spice woods, winter berries, azaleas, spireas, and a hundred
other fine low shrubs, growing wild, which are by nature
extremely well fitted for such sites, and will produce
immediate effect on being transplanted. These may be
intermingled, here and there, with the swamp button-bush
(Cephalanthus), which bears handsome white globular heads
of blossoms, and the swamp magnolia, which is highly
beautiful and fragrant. On cool north banks, among
shelves of proper soil upheld by projecting ledges of rock,
our native Kalmias and Rhododendrons, the’ common and
mountain laurels, may be made to flourish. The Virginia
Creeper, and other beautiful wild vines, may be planted at
the roots of some of the trees to clamber up their stems,
and the wild Clematis so placed that its luxuriant festoons
shall hang gracefully from the projecting boughs of some of
the overarching trees. Along the lower banks and closer
margins, the growth of smaller plants will be encouraged,
and various kinds of wild ferns may be so planted as
partially to conceal, overrun, and hide the rocks and
stumps of trees, while trailing plants, as the periwinkle and
moneywort (Lysamachia nummularia), will still further
increase the intricacy and richness of such portions. In
this way, the borders. of the lake will resemble the finest
portions of the banks of picturesque and beautiful natural
dells and pieces of water, and the effect of the whole when

362 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

time has given it the benefit of its softening touches, if it
has been thus properly executed, will not be much inferior
to those matchless bits of fine landscape. A more striking
and artistical effect will be produced by substituting for
native trees and shrubs, common on the banks of streams
and lakes in the country, only rare foreign shrubs, vines,
and aquatic plants of hardy growth, suitable for such
situations. While these are arranged in the same manner
as the former, from their comparative novelty, especially
in such sites, they will at once convey the idea of refined
and elegant art.

If any person will take the trouble to compare a piece of
water so formed, when complete, with the square or circular
sheets or ponds now in vogue among us, he must indeed be
little gifted with an appreciation of the beautiful, if he do
not at once perceive the surpassing merit of the natural
style. In the old method, the banks, level, or rising on all
sides, without any or but few surrounding trees, carefully
gravelled along the edge of the water, or what is still worse,
walled up, slope away in a tame, dull, uninteresting grass
field. In the natural method, the outline is varied, some-
times receding from the eye, at others stealing out, and
inviting the gaze—the banks here slope off gently with a
gravelly beach, and there rise abruptly in different heights,
abounding with hollows, projections, and eminences, show-
ing various colored rocks and soils, intermingled with a
luxuriant vegetation of all sizes and forms, corresponding to
the different situations. Instead of allowing the sun to
pour down in one blaze of light, without any objects to
soften it with their shade, the thick overhanging groups and
masses of trees cast, here and there, deep cool shadows.
Stealing through the Jeaves and branches, the sun-beams

TREATMENT OF WATER. 363

quiver and play upon the surface of the flood, and are
reflected back in dancing light, while their full glow upon
the broader and more open portions of the lake is relieved,
and brought into harmony by the cooler and softer tints
mirrored in the water from the surrounding hues and tints
of banks, rocks, and vegetation.

Natural brooks and rivulets may often be improved
greatly by a few trifling alterations and additions, when
they chance to come within the bounds of a country resi-
dence. Occasionally, they may be diverted from their
original beds when they run through distant and unfre-
quented parts of the demesne, and brought through nearer
portions of the pleasure grounds or lawn. This, however,
can only be done with propriety when there is a natural
indication in ‘the grounds through which it is proposed to
divert it—as a succession of hollows, etc., to form the
future channel. Sometimes, a brisk little brook can be
divided into smaller ones for some distance, again uniting
at a point below, creating additional diversity by its vary-
ing form.*

Brooks, rivulets, and even rills may frequently be greatly
improved by altering the form of their beds in various
places. Often by merely removing a few trifling obstruc-
tions, loose stones, branches, etc., or hollowing away the

* The Abbe Délille has given us a fine image of a brook thus divided, in
the following lines :—
« Plus loin, il se sépare en deux ruisseaux agiles,
Qui, se suivant ]’un l’autre avec rapidité,
Disputent de vitesse et de limpidité ;
Puis, rejoignant tous deux le lit qui les rassemble,
Murmurent enchantés de voyager ensemble.
Ajinsi, toujours errant de détour en détour,
Muet, bruyant, paisible, inquiet tour a tour,
Sous mille aspects divers son cours se renouvelle.”

364 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

adjoining bank for a short distance, fine little expanses or
pools of still water may be formed, which are happily con-
trasted with the more rugged course of the rest of the
stream. Such improvements of these minor water courses
are much preferable to widening them into flat, insipid,
tame canals or rivers, which, though they present greater
surface to the eye, are a thousand times inferior in the
impetuosity of motion, and musical, “babbling sound,” so
delightful in rapid brooks and rivulets.*

Cascades and water-falls are the most charming features
of natural brooks and rivulets. Whatever may be their
size they are always greatly admired, and in no way is the
peculiar stillness of the air, peculiar to the country, more
pleasingly broken, than by the melody of falling water.
Even the gurgling and mellow sound of a small rill, leapmg
over a few fantastic stones, has a kind of lulling fascination
for the ear, and when this sound can be brought so near as
to be distinctly heard at the residence itself, it is peculiarly
delightful.t Now any one who examines a small cascade
at all attentively, in a natural brook, will see that it is often
formed in the simplest manner by the interposition of a few
large projecting stones, which partially dam up the current
and prevent the ready flow of the water. Such little cas-
cades are easily imitated, by following exactly the same

* The most successful improvement of a natural brook that we have ever
witnessed, has been effected in the grounds of Henry Sheldon, Esq., of Tarry-
town, N. Y. The great variety and beauty displayed in about a fourth of a
mile of the course of this stream, its pretty cascades, rustic bridges, rockwork,
ete., reflect the highest credit on the taste of that gentleman.

+ The fine stream which forms the south boundary of Blithewood, on the
Hudson, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., affords two of the finest natural cata-
racts that we have seen in the grounds of any private residence. Fig. 41 is a
view of the larger cascade which falls about 60 feet over a bold, rocky bed.

hl
. 7
o*
»”
~ 2
. nl

Fig. 41 The Cataract at Blithewood

364

TREATMENT OF WATER. 365

course, and damming up the little brook artificially ; stu-
diously avoiding, however, any formal and artificial dis-
position of the stones or rocks employed.

Larger water-falls and cascades cannot usually be made
without some regular head or breastwork, to oppose more
firmly the force of the current. Such heads may be formed
of stout plank and well prepared clay ;* or, which is greatly
preferable, of good masonry laid in water cement. After
a head is thus formed it must be concealed entirely from
the eye by covering it both upon the top and sides with
natural rocks and stones of various sizes, so ingeniously
disposed, as to appear fully to account for, or be the cause
of the water-fall.

The axe of the original backwoodsman appears to have
left such a mania for clearing behind it, even in those
portions of the Atlantic states where such labor should be
for ever silenced, that some of our finest places in the
country will be found much desecrated and mutilated by
its careless and unpardonable use ; and not only are fine
plantations often destroyed, but the banks of some of our
finest streams and prettiest rivulets partially laid bare by
the aid of this instrument, guided by some tasteless hand.
Wherever fine brooks or water courses are thus mutilated,
one of the most necessary and obvious improvements is to
reclothe them with plantations of trees and underwood.
In planting their banks anew, much beauty and variety
can often be produced by employing different growths,
and arranging them as we have directed for the margins

* Tt is found that strong loam or any tenacious earth well prepared by
puddling or beating in water is equally impervious to water as clay ; and may
therefore be used for lining the sides or dams of bodies of made water when
such materials are required.

366 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

of lakes and ponds. In some places where easy, beautiful
slopes and undulations of ground border the streams,
gravel, soft turf, and a few simple groups of trees, will be
the most natural accompaniments ; in others where the
borders of the stream are broken into rougher, more
rocky, and precipitous ridges, all the rich wildness and
intricacy of low shrubs, ferns, creeping and climbing
plants, may be brought in to advantage. Where the
extent to be thus improved is considerable, the trouble
may be lessened by planting the larger growth, and sowing
the seeds of the smaller plants mingled together. Prepare
the materials, and time and nature, with but little occa-
sional assistance, will mature, and soften, and blend
together the whole, in their own matchless and inimitable
manner.

From all that we have suggested in these limited
remarks, it will be seen that we would only attempt in our
operations with water, the graceful or picturesque imitations
of natural lakes or ponds, and brooks, rivulets, and streams.
Such are the only forms in which this unrivalled element
can be displayed so as to harmonize agreeably with natural
and picturesque scenery. In the latter, there can be no
apology made for the introduction of straight canals,
round or oblong pieces of water, and all the regular forms
of the geometric mode ; because they would evidently be
in violent opposition to the whole character and expres-
sion of natural landscape. In architectural, or flower.
gardens (on which we shall hereafter have occasion to
offer some remarks), where a different and highly artificial
arrangement prevails, all these regular forms, with various
jets, fountains, etc., may be employed with good taste,
and will combine well with the other accessories of such

TREATMENT OF WATER. 367

places. But in the grounds of a residence in the modern
style, nature, if possible, still more purified, as in the great
chefs-d’euvre of art, by an ideal standard, should be the
great aim of the Landscape Gardener. And with water
especially, only beautiful when allowed to take its own
flowing forms and graceful motions, more than with any
other of our materials, all appearance of constraint and
formality should be avoided. If art be at all manifest, it
should discover itself only, as in the admirably painted
landscape, in the reproduction of nature in her choicest
- developments. Indeed, many of the most celebrated
authors who have treated of this subject, appear to agree
that the productions of the artist in this branch are most
perfect as they approach most nearly to fac-similes of
nature herself: and though art should have formed the
whole, its employment must be nowhere discovered by the
spectator ; or as Tasso has more elegantly expressed the
idea:

“1”ARTE CHE TUTTO FA, NULLA SI SCOPRE.”

368 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

SECTION IX.

LANDSCAPE OR RURAL ARCHITECTURE.

Difference between a city and a country house. ‘The characteristic features of a country

house. Examination of the leading principles in Rural Architecture. The different ~
styles. The Grecian style, its merits and defects, and its associations. The Roman and-

Italian styles. The Pointed or Gothic style. The Tudor Mansion. The English
Cottage, or Rural Gothic style. These styles considered in relation to situation or
scenery. Individual tastes. Entrance Lodges.

« A house amid the quiet country’s shades,
With length’ning vistas, ever sunny glades ;
Beauty and fragrance clustering o’er the wall,
A porch inviting, and an ample hall.”

RC HLT EG:T UR
either practically cohsidered
or viewed as an art of taste,
is asubject so important and

comprehensive in itself, that

volumes would be requisite
to do it justice. Buildings of every description, from the
humble cottage to the lofty temple, are objects of such
constant recurrence in every habitable part of the globe,
and are so strikingly indicative of the intelligence,
character, and taste of the inhabitants, that they possess
in themselves a great and peculiar interest for the mind.
To have a “local habitation,’—a permanent dwelling,
that we can give the impress of our own mind, and
identify with our own existence,—appears to be the

ardent wish, sooner or later felt, of every man: excepting

tie a il

RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 369

only those wandering sons of Ishmael, who pitch their
tents with the same indifference, and as little desire to
remain fixed, in the flowery plains of Persia, as in the
sandy deserts of Zahara or Arabia.

In a city or town, or in its immediate vicinity, where
space is limited, where buildings stand crowded together,
and depend for their attractions entirely upon the style
and manner of their construction, mere architectural
effect, after convenience and fitness are consulted, is of
course the only point to be kept in view. There, the
facade. which meets the eye of the spectator from the
public street, is enriched and made attractive by the
display of architectural style and decoration, commen-
surate to the magnitude or importance of the edifice ; and
the whole, so far as the effect of the building is concerned,
comes directly within the province of the architect alone.

With respect to this class of dwellings we have little
complaint to make, for many of our town residences are
highly elegant and beautiful. But how shall we designate
that singular perversity of taste, or rather that total want
of it, which prompts the man, who, under the name of a
villa residence, piles up in the free open country, amid the
green fields, and beside the wanton gracefulness of luxuriant
nature, a stiff modern “three story brick,” which, like a
well bred cockney with a true horror of the country,
doggedly seems to refuse to enter into harmonious com-
bination with any other object in the scene, but only

serves to call up the exclamation,

Avaunt, stiff pile! why didst thou stray
From blocks congenial in Broadway!

Yet almost daily we see built up in the country huge
24

370 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

combinations of boards and shingles, without the least
attempt at adaptation to situation; and square masses
of brick start up here and there, in the verdant slopes
of our village suburbs, appearing as if they had been
transplanted, by some unlucky incantation, from the close-
packed neighborhood of city residence, and left acciden-
tally in the country, or, as Sir Walter Scott has re-
marked, “had strayed out to the country for an airing.”
What then are the proper characteristics of a rural
residence? The answer to this, in a few words, is, such
a dwelling, as from its various accommodations, not only
gives ample space for all the comforts and conveniences
of a country life, but by its varied and picturesque form
and outline, its porches, verandas, etc., also appears to
have some reasonable connexion, or be in perfect keeping,
with surrounding nature. Architectural beauty must be
considered conjointly with the beauty of the landscape or
situation. Buildings of almost every description, and
particularly those for the habitation of man, will be
considered by the mind of taste, not only as architectural
objects of greater or less merit, but as component parts
of the general scene; united with the surrounding lawn,
embosomed in tufts of trees and shrubs, if properly
designed and constructed, they will even serve to impress
a character upon the surrounding landscape. Their effect
will frequently be good or bad, not merely as they are
excellent or indifferent examples of a certain style of
building, but as they are happily or unhappily combined
with the adjacent scenery. The intelligent observer will
readily appreciate the truth of this, and acknowledge the
value, as well as necessity, of something besides archi-
tectural knowledge. And he will perceive how much

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 371

more likely to be successful are the efforts of him, who, in
composing and constructing a rural residence, calls in to
the aid of architecture, the genius of the landscape ;—
whose mind is imbued with a taste for beautiful scenery,
and who so elegantly and ingeniously engrafts art upon
nature, as to heighten her beauties; while by the
harmonious union he throws a borrowed charm around
his own creation.

The English, above all other people, are celebrated for
their skill in what we consider rural adaptation. Their
residences seem to be a part of the scenes where they are
situated ; for their exquisite taste and nice perception of
the beauties of Landscape Gardening and rural scenery,
lead them to erect those picturesque edifices, which, by
their varied outlines, seem in exquisite keeping with
nature; while by the numberless climbing plants, shrubs,
and fine ornamental trees with which they surround them,
they form beautiful pictures of rural beauty. Even the
various offices connected with the dwelling, partially
concealed by groups of foliage, and contributing to the
expression of domestic comfort, while they extend out,
and give importance to the main edifice, also serve to
connect it, in a less abrupt manner, with the grounds.

The leading principles which should be our guide in
Landscape or Rural Architecture, have been condensed
by an able writer in the following heads. “1st, As a
useful art, in FITNESS FOR THE END IN VIEW: 2d, as an
art of design in EXPRESSION OF PURPOSE: 3d, as an art
of taste, in EXPRESSION OF SOME PARTICULAR ARCHITEC-
TURAL STYLE.”

The most enduring and permanent source of satisfaction
in houses is, undoubtedly, utility. In a country residence,

372 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

therefore, of whatever character, the comfort and con-
venience of the various members of the family being the
first and most important consideration, the quality of
fitness is universally appreciated and placed in the first
rank. In many of those articles of furniture or apparel
which luxury or fashion has brought into use, fitness or
convenience often gives way to beauty of form or texture :
but in a habitation intended to shelter us from the heat
and cold, as well as to give us an opportunity to dispense
the elegant hospitalities of refined life—the neglect of the
various indispensable conveniences and comforts which
an advanced state of civilization requires, would be but
poorly compensated for by a fanciful exterior or a highly
ornate style of building. Further than this, fitness will
extend to the choice of situation ; selecting a sheltered
site, neither too high, as upon the exposed summit of bleak
hills, nor too low, as in the lowest bottoms of damp
valleys ; but preferring those middle grounds which, while
they afford a free circulation of air, and a fine prospect,
are not detrimental to the health or enjoyment of the
occupants. A proper exposure is another subject, worthy
of the attention of either the architect or proprietor, as
there are stormy and pleasant aspects or exposures in all
climates.

However much the principle of fitness may be appre-
ciated and acted upon in the United States, we have
certainly great need of apology for the flagrant and almost
constant violation of the second principle, viz. the expres-
sion of purpose. By the expression of purpose in
buildings, is meant that architectural character, or
ensemble, which distinctly points out the particular use or

destination for which the edifice is intended. In a

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* r=
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iat

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 373

dwelling-house, the expression of purpose is conveyed by
the chimney-tops, the porch or veranda, and_ those
various appendages indicative of domestic enjoyment,
which are needless, and therefore misplaced, in a public
building. In a church, the spire or the dome, when
present, at once stamps the building with the expression
of purpose ; and the few openings and plain exterior, with
the absence of chimneys, are the suitable and easily
recognised characteristics of the barn. Were any one to
commit so violent an outrage upon the principle of the
expression of purpose as to surmount his barns with the
tall church spire, our feelings would at once cry out
against the want of propriety. Yet how often do we
meet in the northern states, with stables built after the
models of Greek temples, and barns with elegant Venetian
shutters—to say nothing of mansions with none but
concealed chimney-tops, and without porches or append-
ages of any kind, to give the least hint to the mind of the
doubting spectator, whether the edifice is a chapel, a bank,
a hospital, or the private dwelling of a man of wealth and
opulence!

“The expression of the purpose for which every
building is erected,” says the writer before quoted, “is
the first and most essential beauty, and should be obvious
from its architecture, although independent of any
particular style; in the same manner as the reasons for
things are altogether independent of the language in
which they are conveyed. As in literary composition, no
beauty of language can ever compensate for poverty of
sense, so in architectural composition, no beauty of style
can ever compensate for want of expression of purpose.”

Applying this excellent principle to our own country

374 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

houses and their offices or out-buildings, we think every
reasonable person will, at the first glance, see how
lamentably deficient are many of the productions of our
architects and builders, in one of the leading principles of
the art. The most common form for an American country
villa is the pseudo-Greek Temple ; that is, a rectangular
oblong building, with the chimney-tops concealed, if
possible, and instead of a pretty and comfortable porch,
veranda, or piazza, four, six, or eight lofty wooden
columns are seen supporting a portico, so high as neither
to afford an agreeable promenade, nor a sufficient shelter
from the sun and rain.

There are two features, which it is now generally
admitted contribute strongly to the expression of purpose
in a dwelling-house, and especially in a country residence.
These are the chinmey-tops and the entrance porch.
Chimney-tops, with us, are generally square masses of
brick, rising above the roof, and presenting certainly no
very elegant appearance, which may perhaps serve as the
apology of those who studiously conceal them. But in a
climate where fires are requisite during a large portion of
the year, chimney-tops are expressive of a certain comfort
resulting from the use of them, which characterizes a
building intended for a dwelling in that climate. Chimney-
tops being never, or rarely, placed on those buildings
intended for the inferior animals, are also undoubtedly
strongly indicative of human habitations. Instead, there-
fore, of hiding or concealing them, they should be in all
dwellings not only boldly avowed, but rendered ornamental ;
for whatever is a characteristic and necessary feature,
should undoubtedly, if possible, be rendered elegant, or at
least prevented from being ugly. .

MITE eer es er

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 375

Much of the picturesque effect of the old English and
Italian houses, undoubtedly arises from the handsome and
curious stacks of chimneys which spring out of their roofs.
These, while they break and diversify the sky outline of the
building, enrich and give variety to its most bare and
unornamented part. Examples are not wanting, in all the
different styles of architecture, of handsome and character-
istic chimneys, which may be adopted in any of our
dwellings of a similar style. The Gothic, or old English
chimney, with octagonal or cylindrical flues or shafts united
in clusters, is made in a great variety of forms, either of
bricks or artificial stone. The former materials, moulded
in the required shape, are highly taxed in England, while
they may be very cheaply made here.

A Porch strengthens or conveys expression of purpose,
because, instead of leaving the entrance door bare, as in
manufactories and buildings of an inferior description, it
serves both as a note of preparation, and an effectual
shelter and protection to the entrance. Besides this, it
gives a dignity and importance to that entrance, pointing
it out to the stranger as the place of approach. A fine
country house, without a porch or covered shelter to the
doorway of some description, is therefore as incomplete,
to the correct eye, as a well printed book without a title
page, leaving the stranger to plunge at once in medias res,
without the friendly preparation of a single word of intro-
duction. Porches are susceptible of every variety of form
and decoration, from the embattled and buttressed portal
of the Gothic castle, to the latticed arbor porch of the
cottage, around which the festoons of luxuriant climbing
plants cluster, giving an effect not less beautiful than the
richly carved capitals of the classic portico. ,

376 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

In this country no architectural feature is more plainly
expressive of purpose in our dwelling-houses than the
veranda, or piazza. The unclouded splendor and fierce
heat of our summer sun, render this very general appendage
a source of real comfort and enjoyment; and the long
veranda round many of our country residences stands
instead of the paved terraces of the English mansions as
the place for promenade ; while during the warmer portions
of the season, half of the days or evenings are there passed
in the enjoyment of the cool breezes, secure under low
roofs supported by the open colonnade, from the solar rays,
or the dews of night. The obvious utility of the veranda
in this climate (especially in the middle and southern states)
will, therefore, excuse its adoption into any style of archi-
tecture that may be selected for our domestic uses, although
abroad, buildings in the style in question, as the Gothic, for
example, are not usually accompanied by such an append-
age. An artist of the least taste or invention will easily
compose an addition of this kind, that will be in good
keeping with the rest of the edifice.

These various features, or parts of the building, with
many others which convey expression of purpose in
domestic architecture, because they recall to the mind the
different uses to which they are applied, and the several
enjoyments connected with them, also contribute greatly
to the interest of the building itself, and heighten its good
effect as part of a harmonious whole, in the landscape.
The various projections and irregularities, caused by
verandas, porticoes, etc., serve to connect the otherwise
square masses of building, by gradual transition with the
ground about it.

The reader, who thus recognises features as expressive

tt 2 Pee
2 | ps a

- + ‘ f

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 377

of purpose in a dwelling intended for the habitation of man,
we think, can be at no great loss to understand what would
be characteristic in out-buildings or offices, farm-houses,
lodges, stables, and the like, which are necessary structures
on a villa or mansion residence of much size or importance.
A proper regard to the expression of use or purpose, without
interfering with the beauty of style, will confer at all times
another, viz. the beauty of truth, without which no building

‘can be completely satisfactory ; as deceptions of this kind
(buildings appearing to be what they are not) always go
far towards destroying in the mind those pleasurable emo-
tions felt on viewing any correct work of art, however
simple in character or design.

We have now to consider rural architecture under the
guidance of the third leading principle, as an art of taste.
The expression of architectural style in buildings is un-
doubtedly a matter of the first importance, and proper care
being taken not to violate fitness and expression of purpose,
it may be considered as appealing most powerfully, at once,
to the mind of almost every person. Indeed, with many,
it is the only species of beauty which they perceive in
buildings, and to it both convenience and the expression
of purpose are often ignorantly sacrificed.

A marked style of architecture appears to us to have
claims for our admiration or preference for rural residences,
for several reasons. As it is intrinsically beautiful in itself;
as it interests us by means of the associations connected
with it ; as it is fitted to the wants and comforts of country
life; and as it is adapted to, or harmonizes with, the
locality or scenery where it is located.

The harmonious union of buildings and scenery, is a
point of taste that appears to be but little understood in

378 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

any country ; and mainly, we believe, because the architect
and the landscape painter are seldom combined in the same
person, or are seldom consulted together. It is for this
reason that we so rarely see a country residence, or cottage
and its grounds, making such a composition as a landscape
painter would choose for his pencil. But it does not seem
difficult, with a slight recurrence to the leading principle
of unity of expression, to suggest a mode of immediately
deciding which style of building is best adapted to harmo- °
nize with a certain kind of scenery.

The reader is, we trust, already familiar with our
division of landscapes into two natural classes,—the
Beautiful and the Picturesque,—and the two accordant
systems of improvement in Landscape Gardening which
we have based upon these distinct characters. Now, in
order to render our buildings perfectly harmonious, we
conceive it only to be necessary to arrange (as we may
very properly do) all the styles of domestic architecture in
corresponding divisions.

Some ingenious writer has already developed this idea,
and, following a hint taken from the two leading schools
of literature and art, has divided all architecture into the
Classical and the Romantic schools of design. The
Classical comprises the Grecian style, and all its near and
direct offspring, as the Roman and Italian modes; the
Romantic school, the Gothic style, with its numberless
variations of Tudor, Elizabethan, Flemish, and old English
modes.

It is easy to see, at a glance, how well these divisions
correspond with our Beautiful and Picturesque phases of
Landscape Gardening, so that indeed we might call the

Grecian or Classical style, Beautiful, and the Gothic or

RURAL ARCHITECTURE, 379

Romantic style, the Picturesque schools in architecture.
In classical buildings, as in beautiful landscape, we are led
to admire simplicity of forms and outlines, purity of effect,
and grace of composition. Inthe Romantic or Picturesque
buildings, we are struck by the irregularity of forms and
outlines, variety of effect, and boldness of composition.
What, therefore, can be more evident in seeking to
produce unity of effect than the propriety of selecting
some variations of the classical style for Beautiful
landscape, and some species of romantic irregular building
for Picturesque landscape ?

In a practical point of view, all buildings which have
considerable simplicity of outline, a certain complete and
graceful style of ornament, and a polished and refined kind
of finish, may be considered as likely to harmonize best
with all landscape where the expression is that of simple
or graceful beauty—where the lawn or surface is level or
gently undulating, the trees rich and full in foliage and
form, and the general character of the scenery peaceful
and beautiful. Such are the Grecian, Roman, Tuscan,
and the chaster Italian styles.

On the other hand, buildings of more irregular outline,
in which appear bolder or ruder ornaments, and a certain
free and more rustic air in finishing, are those which
should be selected to accompany scenery of a wilder or
more picturesque character, abounding in striking varia-
tions of surface, wood, and water. And these are the
Castellated, the Tudor, and the old English in all its forms.

‘There is still an intermediate kind of architecture,
originally a variation of the classical style, but which, in
becoming adapted to different and more picturesque
~ situations, has lost much of its graceful character, and has

380 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

become quite picturesque in its outlines and effects. Of
this kind are the Swiss and the bracketed cottage, and the
different highly irregular forms of the Italian villa. The
more simple and regular variations of these modes of
building, may be introduced with good effect in any plain
country ; while the more irregular and artistical forms have
the happiest effect only in more highly varied and suitable
localities.

The Egyptian, one of the oldest architectural styles,
characterized by its heavy colossal forms, and almost sub-
lime expression, is supposed to have had its origin in caverns
hewn in the rocks. The Chinese style, easily known by
its waving lines, probably had its type in the eastern tent.
The Saracenic, or Moorish style, rich in fanciful decoration,
is striking and picturesque in its details, and is worthy of
the attention of the wealthy amateur.

Neither of these styles, however, is, or can well be,
thoroughly adapted to our domestic purposes, as they are
wanting in fitness, and have comparatively few charms of
association for residents of this country.

The only styles at present in common use for domestic
architecture, throughout the enlightened portions of Europe
and America, are the Grecian and Gothic styles, or some
modifications of these two distinct kinds of building. These
modifications, which of themselves are now considered
styles by most authors, are, the Roman and modern Italian
styles, which have grown out of Greek architecture; the
Castellated, the Tudor, the Elizabethan, and the rural
Gothic or old English cottage styles, all of which are
variations of Gothic architecture.

Grecian or classic architecture was exhibited in its
purity in those splendid temples of the golden days of

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 381

Athens, which still remain in a sufficient degree of pre-
servation to bear ample testimony to the high state of
architectural art among the Greeks. The best works of
that period are always characterized by unity and sim-
plicity, and in them an exquisite proportion is united with
a chasteness of decoration, which stamps them perfect
works of art. Each of the five orders was so nicely
determined by their profound knowledge of the harmony
of forms, and admirably executed, that all modern attempts
at improving them have entirely failed, for they are, indi-
vidually, complete models.

— ——* First unadorned
And nobly plain, the manly Doric rose ;
The Ionic then with decent matron grace
Her airy pillar heaved ; luxuriant last
The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath.”

A single or double portico of columns supporting a lofty
pediment, the latter connected with the main body of the
building, which in most cases was a simple parallelogyam,
were the characteristic features of the pure Grecian archi-
tecture. And this very simplicity of form, united with
the chasteness of decoration and elegance of proportion,
enhanced greatly the beauty of the Grecian temple as a
whole.

To the scholar and the man of refined and cultivated
mind, the associations connected with Grecian architecture
are of the most delightful character. They transport him
back, in imagination, to the choicest days of classic litera-
ture and art, when the disciples of the wisest and best of
Athens listened to eloquent discourses that were daily
delivered from her grove-embowered porticoes. When

her temples were designed by a Phidias, and her architec-

382 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ture encouraged and patronized by a Pericles; when, in
short, all the splendor of Pagan mythology, and the wisdom
of Greek philosophy, were combined. to perfect the arts and
sciences of that period, and the temples dedicated to the
Olympian Jove or the stately Minerva, were redolent with
that beauty, which the Greeks worshipped, studied, and so
well knew how to embody in material forms.

As it is admitted, then, that Grecian architecture is
intrinsically beautiful in itself, and highly interesting in
point of associations, it may be asked what are the
objections, if any, to its common introduction into domes-
tic Rural Architecture.

To this we answer, that although this form meagrely
copied, Fig. 42, is actually in more common use than any
other style in the United States, it is greatly inferior to
the Gothic and its modifications in fitness, including under
that head all the comforts and conveniences of country
life.

* at BRS ad

[Fig. 42. Grecian Residence.]

We have already avowed that we consider fitness and
expression of purpose, two leading principles of the first
importance in Rural Architecture ; and Grecian archi-
tecture in its pure form, viz. the temple, when applied to

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 383

the purposes of domestic life, makes a sad blow at both
these established rules. As a public building, the Greek
temple form is perfect, both as to fitness (having one or
more large rooms) and expression of purpose ;—showing
a high, broad portico for masses of people, with an ample
opening for egress and ingress. Domestic life, on the
contrary, requires apartments of various dimensions,
some large and others smaller, which, to be conveniently,
must often be irregularly placed, with perhaps openings or
windows of different sizes or dimensions. The comforts

of a country residence are so various, that verandas,

porches, wings of different sizes, and many other little
accommodations expressive of purpose, become necessary,
and, therefore, when properly arranged, add to the beauty
of Rural Architecture. But the admirer of the true
Greek models is obliged to forego the majority of these ;
and to come within the prescribed form of the rectangular
parallelogram, his apartments must be of a given size and
a limited number, while many things, both exterior and
interior, which convenience might otherwise prompt, have
to bow to the despotic sway of the pure Greek model.*
In a dwelling of moderate dimensions how great a sacrifice
of room is made to enable the architect to display the
portico alone! We speak now chiefly of houses of the
ordinary size, for if one chooses to build a palace, it is
evident that ample accommodations may be obtained in
any style.

* We are well aware that such is the rage for this style among us just now,
and so completely have our builders the idea of its unrivalled supremacy in
their heads, that many submit to the most meagre conveniences, under the
name of closets, libraries, ete., in our country houses, without a murmur,
believing that they are realizing the perfection of domestic comfort,

384 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

It has been well observed
by modern critics, that there
is no reason to believe the
_ temple form was ever, even
by the Greeks, used for pri-
vate dwellings, which easily
- accounts for our compara-

=“tive failure in constructing
iat dana tehidonee’) well arranged, small resi-
dences in this style.
The Romans, either unable to compose in the simple
elegance and beauty of the Grecian style, or feeling its

want of adaptation to the multifarious usages of a more

: Sax
< av BS]
JOT AULA t

[Fig. 44. View at Presque Isle, the residence of Wm. Denning, Esq., Dutchess Co., N. Y.]

luxurious state of society, created for themselves what is
generally considered a less beautiful and perfect, yet which

is certainly a more rich, varied, and, if we may use the

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 385

term, accommodating style. The Roman style is dis-
tinguished from its prototype by the introduction of arched
openings over the doors and windows, story piled over
story,—often with columns of different orders—instead of
the simple unbroken line of the Greek edifices. In
decoration, the buildings in this style vary from plain,
unornamented exteriors, to the most highly decorated
facades ; and instead of being confined to the few fixed
principles of the Greek, the greatest latitude is often
observed in the proportions, forms, and decorations of
buildings in the Roman style. These very circumstances,
while they rendered the style less perfect as a fine art, or
for public edifices, gave it a pliability or facility of
adaptation, which fits’ it more completely for domestic
purposes. For this reason, a great portion of the finest
specimens of the modern domestic architecture of the
other continent is to be found in the Roman style.*

The Italian style is, we think, decidedly the most
beautiful mode for domestic purposes, that has been the
direct offspring of Grecian art. It is a style which has |
evidently grown up under the eyes of the painters of more
modern Italy, as it is admirably adapted to harmonize with
general nature, and produce a pleasing and picturesque
effect in fine landscapes. Retaining more or less of the
columns, arches, and other details of the Roman style, it.
has intrinsically a bold irregularity, and strong contrast of
light and shadow, which give it a peculiarly striking and
painter-like effect.

* Perhaps the finest fagade ofa private residence, in America, is that of the
*Patroon’s house,’ near Albany, the ancient seat of the Van Rensselaer
family, lately remodelled and improved by that skilful architect, Mr. Upjohn,
of New York.

386 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

“The villa architecture of modern Italy,” says Mr.
Lamb, an able architect,* “is characterized, when on
a moderate scale, by scattered irregular masses, great
contrasts of light and shade, broken and plain surfaces, and
great variety of outline against the sky. The blank wall
on which the eye sometimes reposes ; the towering cam-
panile, boldly contrasted with the horizontal line of roof
only broken by a few straggling chimney-tops : the row of
equal sized, closely placed windows, contrasting with the
plain space and single window of the projecting balcony ;
the prominent portico, the continued arcade, the terraces,
and the variously formed and disposed out-buildings, all
combine to form that picturesque whole, which distinguishes
the modern Italian villa from every other.” +

A building in the Italian style may readily be known at
first sight, by the peculiar appearance of its roofs. These
are always projecting at the eaves, and deeply furrowed or

ridged, being formed abroad of semi-cylindrical tiles, which
give a distinct and highly marked expression to this
* Loudon’s Ency. of Arch. p. 951.

+ In this country, owing to the greater number of fires, the effect would be

improved by an additional number of chimney-tops.

Fig. 48 Villa of Theodore Lyman Esq. near Boston.

Fy gap mun ——

etal) Jel |E a

Fig. 49. Residence of Bishop Doane, Burlington, N. J.

387

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 387

portion of the building.* So many appliances of comfort
and enjoyment suited to a warm climate appear, too, in
the villas of this style, that it has a peculiarly elegant and
refined appearance. Among these are arcades, with the
Roman arched openings, forming sheltered promenades ;
and beautiful balconies projecting from single windows, or
sometimes from connected rows of windows, which are
charming places for a coup d’eil, or to enjoy the cool
breeze—as they admit, to shelter one from the sun, of a
fanciful awning shade, which may be raised or lowered at
pleasure. The windows themselves are bold, and well
marked in outline, being either round-arched at the tops,

or finished with a heavy architrave.

[Fig. 46. Residence of Gov. Morehead, North Carolina.}

All these balconies, arcades, etc., are sources of real
pleasure in the hotter portions of our year, which are quite
equal in elevation of temperature to summers of the south
of Europe; while by increased thickness of walls and

* Tn some situations in this country, where it might be difficult to procure
tiles made in this form, their effect may be very accurately imitated by deeply
ridged zine or tin coverings. ‘The bold projection of the eaves, in the Italian
style, offers great protection to a house against storms and dampness.

388 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

closeness of window fixtures, the houses may also be made
of the most comfortable description in winter.

The Italian chimney-tops, unlike the Grecian, are
always openly shown and rendered ornamental; and as
we have already mentioned, the irregularity in the masses
of the edifice and shape of the roof, renders the sky
outline of a building in this style, extremely picturesque.
A villa, however small, in the Italian style, may have an
elegant and expressive character, without interfering
with convenient internal arrangements, while at the same
time this style has the very great merit of allowing
additions to be made in almost any direction, without
injuring the effect of the
original structure; indeed
such is the variety of sizes
and forms which the dif-

ferent parts of an Italian

, villa may take, in perfect
Bee ays a Cha <3,
[Fig. 47. The New Haven Suburban Villa.*] 2¢Cordance with architec-
tural propriety, that the original edifice frequently gains in
beauty by additions of this description. Those who are
aware how many houses are every year erected in the
United States by persons of moderate fortune, who would
gladly make additions at some subsequent period, could
this be done without injuring the effect or beauty of the

main building, will, we think, acknowledge how much,

* New Haven abounds with tasteful residences. “ Hillhouse Avenue,” in
particular, is remarkable for a neat display of Tuscan or Italian Suburban
Villas. Moderate in dimension and economical in construction, these exceed-
ingly neat edifices may be considered as models for this kind of dwelling.
Fig. 47, without being a precise copy of any one of these buildings, may be
taken as a pretty accurate representation of their general appearance.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 389

even were it in this single point alone, the Italian style is
superior to the Grecian for rural residences.*

* The villa of Theodore Lyman, Esq., at Brookline, near Boston, Fig. 48,
is a highly interesting specimen of this style, designed by Mr. Upjohn—
beautiful in exterior effect, and replete internally with every comfort and
convenience.

Riverside Villa, the residence of Bishop Doane, at Burlington, New
Jersey, is one of the best examples of the Italian style in this country. For
the drawings from which Figures 49 and 50 are engraved, and for the
following description, we are indebted to the able architect, John Notman,
Esq., of Philadelphia, from whose designs the whole was constructed.

The site of this villa is upon the east bank of the Delaware river, near the
town of Burlington, and within a few rods of the margin of this lovely
stream.

The Delaware, at this part of its course, takes a direction nearly west ; and
while the river front (comprising the drawing room, hall, and library), com-
manding the finest water views, which are enjoyed to the greatest advantage
in summer, has a cool aspeet: the opposite side of the house, including the
dining room, parlor, ete., is the favorite quarter in winter, being fully exposed
to the genial influence of the sunbeams during the absence of foliage at that
season. From this side of the house, a view is obtained of the pretty suburbs
of Burlington, studded with neat cottages and gardens.

In the accompanying plan, fig. 50, a, is the hall; b, the vestibule ; c, the
dining room ; d, the library ; e, the drawing room; f, the parlor; g, Bishop
D.’s room ; h, dressing room ; 2, water closets ; 7, bath room; k, store room ;
J, prineipal stairs ; m, back stairs; 0, conservatory ; p, veranda, ete.

A small terrace with balustrade, which surrounds the hall door, gives
importance to this leading feature of the entrance front. The hall, a, is 17
feet square; on the right of the arched entrance is a casement window,
opening to the floor, occasionally used as a door in winter, when the wind is
north. The vestibule, b, opens from the hall, 17 by 21 feet. In the ceiling
of this central apartment is a circular opening, with railing in the second
story, forming a gallery above, which communicates with the’ different
chambers, and affords ventilation to the whole house. Over this cireular
opening is a sky-light in the roof, which, mellowed and softened by a second
colored one below it, serves to light the vestibule. From the vestibule we
enter the dining room, b, 17 by 25 feet. The fine vista through the hall,
vestibule, and dining room, 7@ feet in length, is here terminated by the bay-
window at the extremity of the dining room, which, through the balcony,
opens on the lawn, varied by groups of shrubbery. On the left side of the
vestibule, through a wide circular headed opening, we enter upon the principal

390 | LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Pleasing associations are connected with Roman and
Italian architecture, especially to those who have studied

stairs, 7. This opening is balanced by a recess on the opposite side of the
vestibule. From the latter, a door also opens into the library, d, and another
into the drawing room, e: offering, by a window in the library, in a line with

atts,

SS
[Fig. 50. Plan of the Principal Floor.]

these doors, another fine vista in this direction. The library, 18 by 30 feet,
and 16 feet high, is fitted up in a rich and tasteful manner, and completely
filled with choice books. The bay-window, seen on the Jeft in the perspeetive
view, Fig. 49, is a prominent feature in this room, admitting, through its
colored panes, a pleasing, subdued light, in keeping with the character of the
apartment. ‘The drawing room is 19 by 30 feet, with an enriched panelled
ceiling, 15 feet high. At the extremity of this apartment, the veranda, p,
with a charming view, affords an agreeable lounge in summer evenings,
cooled by the breeze from the river. From the drawing room, a glazed door
opens to the conservatory, 0, and another door to the parlor, f. The latter is
18 by 20 feet, looking across the lawn and into the conservatory. Among
the minor details are a china closet, 7, and a butler’s closet, s, in the dining
room ; through the latter, the dishes are carried to and from the kitchen,
larder, ete. The smaller passage leading from the main staircase, opens to
the store room, k, and other apartments already designated, and communicates

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 391

their effect in all the richness and beauty with which they
are invested in the countries where they originated ; and
they may be regarded with a degree of classic interest by
every cultivated mind. The modern Italian style recalls
images of that land of painters and of the fine arts, where
the imagination, the fancy, and taste, still revel in a world
of beauty and grace. The great number of elegant forms
which have grown out of this long cultivated feeling for
the beautiful in the fine arts,—in the shape of fine vases,
statues, and other ornaments, which harmonize with, and
are so well adapted to enrich, this style of architecture,—
combine to render it in the fine terraced gardens of
Florence and other parts of Italy, one of the richest and
most attractive styles in existence. Indeed we can hardly
imagine a mode of building, which in the hands of a man
of wealth and taste, may, in this country, be made pro-
ductive of more beauty, convenience, and luxury, than
the modern Italian style ; so well suited to both our hot
summers and cold winters, and which is so easily suscep-
tible of enrichment and decoration, while it is at the same
time so well adapted to the material in the most common
use at present in most parts of the country,—wood.
Vases, and other beautiful architectural ornaments, may
now be procured in our cities, or imported direct from
the Mediterranean, finely cut in Maltese stone, at very

by the back stairs, m, with the servants’ chambers, placed over this part of the
house, apart from those in the main body of the edifice. The large kitchen
area, t, is sunk one story, by which the noise and smells of the kitchen,
situated under the dining room, are entirely excluded from the principal story.
In this sunk story, are also a wash room, scullery, and ample room for
eellerage, wine, coals, ete. -A forecing-pump supplies the whole house with
water from the river ; and in the second story are eight principal chambers,
averaging 360 square feet each, making in all 25 rooms in the house, of large
size.

392 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

moderate prices, and which serve to decorate both the
grounds and buildings in a handsome manner.

From the Italian style it is an easy transition to the
Swiss mode, a bold and spirited one, highly picturesque
and interesting in certain situations. To build an exact
copy of a Swiss cottage in a smooth cultivated country,
would, both as regards association and intrinsic want
of fitness, be the height of folly. But in a wild and
mountainons region, such as the borders of certain deep
valleys and rocky glens in the Hudson Highlands, or
rich bits of the Alleghanies, positions may be found
where the Swiss cottage (Fig. 51), with its low and broad
roof, shedding off the heavy snows, its ornamented
exterior gallery, its strong and deep brackets, and its
rough and rustic exterior, would be in the highest degree

appropriate.

[Fig. 51. The Swiss Cottage.]

A modification, partaking somewhat of the Italian and
Swiss features, is what we have described more fully in our
“Cottage Residences” as the Bracketed mode. It possesses

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 393

a good deal of character, is capable of considerable pic-
turesque effect, is very easily and cheaply constructed of
wood or stone, and is perhaps more entirely adapted to our

[Fig. 52. The Bracketed Mode.]}

hot summers and cold winters than any other equally
simple mode of building. We hope to see this Bracketed
style becoming every day more common in the United
States, and especially in our farm and country houses,
when wood is the material employed in their construction.

Gothic, or more properly, pointed architecture, which
sprang up with the Christian religion, reached a point of
great perfection about the thirteenth century ; a period
when the most magnificent churches and cathedrals of
England and Germany were erected. These wonderful
structures, reared by an almost magical skill and contriv-
ance, with their richly groined roofs of stone supported in
mid-air; their beautiful and elaborate tracery and carving

of plants, flowers, and animate objects ; their large windows,

394 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

through which streamed a rich glow of rainbow light ; their
various buttresses and pinnacles, all contributing to
strengthen, and at the same time give additional beauty to
the exterior; their clustered columns, airy-like, yet firm ;
and, surmounting the whole, the tall spire, piled up to an
almost fearful height towards the heavens, are lasting
monuments of the genius, scientific skill, and mechanical
ingenuity of the artists of those times. That person, who,
from ignorance or prejudice, fully supposes there is no
architecture but that of the Greeks, would do well to study
one of these unrivalled specimens of human skill. In so
doing, unless he closes his eyes against the evidences of his
senses, he cannot but admit that there is far more genius,
and more mathematical skill, evinced in one of these
cathedrals, than would have been requisite in the construc-
tion of the most celebrated of the Greek temples. Though
they may not exhibit that simplicity and harmony of pro-
portion which Grecian buildings display, they abound in
much higher proofs of genius, as is abundantly evinced in
the conception and execution of Cathedrals so abounding
in unrivalled sublimity, variety, and beauty.

Gothic architecture, in its purity, was characterized
mainly by the pointed arch. This novel feature in archi-
tecture, which, probably, in the hands of artists of great
mathematical skill, was suggested by the inefficiency of the
Roman arch first used, has given rise to all the superior
boldness and picturesqueness of this style compared with
the Grecian; for while the Greek artist was obliged to
cover his narrow openings with architraves, or solid blocks
of stone, resting on columns at short intervals, and filling
up the open space, the Gothic artist, by a single span of

his pointed arch, resting on distant pillars, kept the whole

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 395

area beneath free and unencumbered. Applied, too, to
openings for the admission of light, which were deemed
of comparatively little or no importance by the Greeks, the
arch was of immense value, making it possible to pierce
the solid wall with large and lofty apertures, that diffused
a magical brilliancy of light in the otherwise dim and
shadowy interior.

We have here adverted to the Gothic cathedral (as we
did to the Greek temple) as exhibiting the peculiar style in
question in its greatest purity. For domestic purposes,
both, for the same reasons, are equally unfitted; as they
were never so intended to be used by their original invent-
ors, and being entirely wanting in fitness for the purposes
of habitation in domestic life; the Greek temple, as we
have already shown, from its massive porticoes and the
simple rectangular form of its interior ; and the Gothic
cathedral, from its high-pointed windows, and immense
vaulted apartments. It would scarcely, however, be more
absurd to build a miniature cathedral, for a dwelling in the
Gothic style, than to make an exact copy of the Temple of
Minerva 30 by 50 feet in size, for a country residence, as
we often witness in this country.

The Gothic Style, as applied to Domestic Architecture,
has been varied and adapted in a great diversity of ways,
to the wants of society in different periods, from the 12th
century to the present time. The baronial castle of feudal
days, perched upon its solitary, almost inaccessible height,
and built strongly for defence ; the Collegiate or monastic
abbey of the monks, suited to the rich fertile plains which
these jolly ascetics so-well knew how to select; the Tudor
or Elizabethan mansion, of the English gentleman, sur-

rounded by its beautiful park, filled with old ancestral trees ;

396 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

and the pretty, rural, gabled cottage, of more humble pre-
tensions; are all varieties of this multiform style, easily
adapting itself to the comforts and conveniences of private
life.

Contrasted with Classic Architecture and its varieties,
in which horizontal lines are most prevalent, all the differ-
ent Gothic modes or styles exhibit a preponderance of
vertical or perpendicular lines. In the purer Gothic
Architecture, the style is often determined by the form of
the arch predominant in the window and door openings,
which in all edifices (except Norman buildings) were lancet-
shaped, or high pointed, in the 13th century ; four centred,
or low arched, in the times of Henry VII. and VIII.; and
finally square-headed, as in most domestic buildings of
later date.

Castellated Gothic is easily known, at first sight, by the
line of battlements cut out of the solid parapet wall, which
surmounts the outline of the building in every part. These
generally conceal the roof, which is low, and were origin-
ally intended as a shelter to those engaged in defending the

Waa lial as building against assaults.

= uae Modern buildings in the

castellated style, without

sacrificing almost every-
-~>

a thing to strength, as was
SIGE EP

once necessary, preserve

‘ou.the general character of

=" the ancient castle, while

[Fig. 53. The Castellated Mode. J
they combine with it almost every modern luxury. In
their exteriors, we perceive strong and massive octagonal
or circular towers, rising boldly, with corbelled or project-

ing cornices, above the ordinary level of the building. The

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 397

windows are either pointed or square-headed, or perhaps a
mixture of both. The porch rises into a turreted and
embattled gateway, and all the offices and out-buildings
connected with the main edifice, are constructed in a style
corresponding to that exhibited in the main body of the
building. The whole is placed on a distinct and firm
terrace of stone, and the expression of the edifice is that
of strength and security.

This mode of building is evidently of too ambitious and
expensive a kind for a republic, where landed estates are
not secured by entail, but divided, according to the dictates
of nature, among the different members of a family. It is,
perhaps, also rather wanting in appropriateness, castles
never having been used for defence in this country.
Notwithstanding these objections, there is no very weighty
reason why a wealthy proprietor should not erect his
mansion in the castellated style, if that style be in unison
with his scenery and locality. Few instances, however,
of sufficient wealth and taste to produce edifices of this
kind, are to be met with among us; and the castellated
style is therefore one which we cannot fully recommend
for adoption here. Paltry imitations of it, in materials less
durable than brick or stone, would be discreditable to any
person having the least pretension to correct taste.

The Castellated style never appears completely at home
except in wild and romantic scenery, or in situations where
the neighboring mountains, or wild passes, are sufficiently
near to give that character to the landscape. In such
localities the Gothic castle affects us agreeably, because we
know that baronial castles were generally built in similar
spots, and because the battlements, towers, and other bold

features, combine well with the rugged and spirited

398 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

character of the surrounding objects. To place such a
building in this country on a smooth surface in the midst
of fertile plains, would immediately be felt to be bad taste
by every one, as from the style not having been before our
eyes from childhood, as it is in Europe, we immediately
refer to its original purposes,—those of security and
defence.

A mansion in the Tudor Style affords the best example
of the excellence of Gothic architecture for domestic
purposes. The roof often rises boldly here, instead of
being concealed by the parapet wall, and the gables are
either plain or ornamented with crockets. The windows
are divided by mullions, and are generally enriched with
tracery in astyle less florid than that employed in churches,
but still sufficiently elegant to give an appearance of
decoration to these parts of the building. Sometimes the
low, or Tudor arch, is displayed in the window-heads, but
most commonly the square-headed window with the Gothic
label is employed. Great latitude is allowed in this
particular, as well as in the size of the window, provided
the general details of style are attended to. Indeed, in the
domestic architecture of this era, the windows and doors
are often sources of great architectural beauty, instead of
being left mere bare openings filled with glass, as in the
Classic styles. Not only is each individual window
divided by mullions into compartments whose tops are
encircled by tracery ; but in particular apartments, as the
dining-hall, library, etc., these are filled with richly stained
glass, which gives a mellow, pleasing light to the apartment.
Added to this, the windows, in the best Tudor mansions,
affect a great variety of forms and sizes. Among these

stand conspicuous the bay and oriel windows. The bay-

4 Sa ler
eet]

on RN ag

Residence of the Author, near Newburgh, N. Y.

398

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 399

window, which is introduced on the first or principal floor,
in most apartments of much size or importance, is a
window of treble or quadruple the common size, projecting
from the main body of the room in a semi-octagonal or
hexagonal form, thereby affording more space in the
apartment, from the floor to the ceiling, as well as giving
an abundance of light, and a fine prospect in any favorite
direction. This, while it has a grander effect than several
windows of moderate size, gives a variety of form and
outline to the different apartments, that can never be so
well attained when the windows are mere openings cut in
the solid walls. The oriel-window is very similar to the
bay-window, but projecting in a similar manner from the
upper story, supported on corbelled mouldings. These
windows are not only elegant in the interior, but by
standing out from the face of the walls, they prevent any-
thing like too great a formality externally, and bestow a
pleasing variety on the different fronts of the building.
The sky outline of a villa in the Tudor Gothic style, is
highly picturesque. It is made up of many fine features.
The pointed gables, with their finials, are among the most
striking, and the neat parapet wall, either covered with a
moulded coping, or, perhaps, diversified with battlements ;
the latter not so massive as in the castellated style, but
evidently intended for ornament only. The roof line is
often varied by the ornamented gablet of a dormer window,
rising here and there, and adding to the quaintness of the
whole. We must not forget, above all, the highly enriched
chimney shaft, which, in the English examples, is made of
fancifully moulded bricks, and is carried up in clusters
some distance above the roof. How much more pleasing
for a dwelling must be the outline of such a building, than

4100 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

that of a simple square roof whose summit is one unbroken
straight line !*

The inclosed entrance porch, approached by three or
four stone steps, with a seat or two for servants waiting, is
a distinctive mark of all the old English houses. This
"projects, in most cases, from the main body of the edifice,
and opens directly into the hall. The latter apartment is
not merely (as in most of our modern houses) an entry,
narrow and long, running directly through the house, but
has a peculiar character of its own, being rather spacious,
the roof or ceiling ribbed or groined, and the floor often
inlaid with marble tiles. A corresponding and suitable
style of finish, with Gothic details, runs through all the
different apartments, each of which, instead of being
finished and furnished with the formal sameness here so
prevalent, displays, according to its peculiar purposes—
as the dining-room, drawing-room, library, ete.—a marked
and characteristic air.

We have thus particularized the Tudor mansion, because
we believe that for a cold country like England or the
United States, it has strong claims upon the attention of
large landed proprietors, or those who wish to realize in a
country residence the greatest amount of comfort and
enjoyment. With the addition, here, of a veranda, which
the cool summers of England render needless, we believe
the Tudor Gothic to be the most convenient and com-
fortable, and decidedly the most picturesque and striking

* Two miles south of Albany, on a densely wooded hill, is the villa of Joel
Rathbone, Esq., Fig. 54, one of the most complete specimens of the Tudor
style in the United States. It was built from the designs of Davis, and is,
to the amateur, a very instructive example of this mode of domestic archi-
tecture.

—.h CO

Fig. 54. Residence of Joel Rathbone, Esq. near Albany, N. =

—

White Flains, N. Y.

400

a, .

“All

}
af + [ i \
ime Ra li
KU ky Hi
HN ! Pdi

Fig. 56. A Mansion in the Elizabethan style.

Fig. 57. The Residence of the Rev. Robert Bolton, near
New Rochelle, N. Y.

— RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 401

style, for country residences of a superior class.* The
materials generally employed in their construction in
England, are stone aud brick; and of late years, brick
and stucco has come into very general use.

The Elizabethan Style, that mode of building so com-
mon in England in the 17th century,—a mixture of
Gothic and Grecian in its details—is usually considered as
a barbarous kind of architecture, wanting in purity of
taste. Be this as it may, it cannot be denied that in the
finer specimens of this style, there is a surprising degree
of richness and picturesqueness for which we may look in
vain elsewhere. In short it seems, in the best examples,
admirably fitted for a bowery, thickly foliaged country,
like England, and for the great variety of domestic
enjoyments of its inhabitants. In the most florid examples
of this style, of which many specimens yet remain, we
often meet with every kind of architectural feature and
ornament, oddly, and often grotesquely combined—pointed
gables, dormer-windows, steep and low roofs, twisted
columns, pierced parapets, and broad windows with small
lights. Sometimes the effect of this fantastic combination
is excellent, but often bad. The florid Elizabethan style
is, therefore, a very dangerous one in the hands of any
one but an architect of profound taste; but we think in
some of its simpler forms (Fig. 56), it may be adopted for
country residences here in picturesque situations with a
quaint and happy effect.t

* The residence of Samuel [E. Lyon, Esq., at White Plains, N. Y., Fig. 55,
is a very pleasing example of the Tudor Cottage.

The seat of Robert Gilmor, Esq., near Baltimore, in the Tudor style, is a
very extensive pile of building.”

+ A highly unique residence in the old English syle, is Pelham Priory, the

seat of the Rev. Robert Bolton, near New Rochelle, N. Y., Fig. 57. The
26

402 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. .

The English cottage style, or what we have denominated
Rural Gothic, contains within itself all the most striking
and peculiar elements of the beautiful and picturesque in
its exterior, while it admits of the greatest possible variety
of accommodation and convenience in internal arrange-
ment.

In its general composition, Rural Gothic really differs
from the Tudor style more in that general simplicity
which serves to distinguish a cottage or villa of moderate
size from a mansion, than in any marked character of its
own. The square-headed windows preserve the same
form, and display the Gothic label and mullions,. though
the more expensive finish of decorative tracery is fre-
quently omitted. Diagonal or latticed lights are also more
commonly seen in the cottage style than in the mansion.
The general form and arrangement of the building, though
of course much reduced, is not unlike that of the latter
edifice. The entrance porch is always preserved, and the
bay-window jutting out from the best apartment, gives
variety, and an agreeable expression of use and enjoyment,
to almost every specimen of the old English cottage.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this charming style
as we see it in the best old English cottages, is the pointed
gable. This feature, which grows out of the high roofs
exterior is massive and picturesque, in the simplest taste of the Elizabethan
age, and being built amidst a fine oak wood, of the dark rough stone of the
neighborhood, it has at once the appearance of considerable antiquity. The
interior is constructed and fitted up throughout in the same-feeling,—with
harmonious wainscoting, quaint carving, massive chimney pieces, and old
furniture and armor. Indeed, we doubt if there is, at the present moment,
any recent private residence, even in England, where the spirit of the antique
is more entirely carried out, and where one may more easily fancy himself in

one of those “ mansions builded curiously ” of our ancestors in the time of
“ good Queen Bess.”

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 403

adopted, not only appears in the two ends of the main
building, but terminates every wing or projection of almost
any size that joins to the principal body of the house. The
gables are either of stone or brick, with a handsome
moulded coping, or they are finished with the widely pro-
jecting roof of wood, and verge boards, carved in a fanciful
and highly decorative shape. In either case, the point or
apex is crowned by a finial, or ornamental octagonal shaft,
rendering the gable one of the greatest sources of interest
in these dwellings. The projecting roof renders the walls
always dry. |

The porch, the labelled windows, the chimney shafts,
and the ornamented gables, being the essential features in
the composition of the English cottage style, it is evident
that this mode of building is highly expressive of purpose,
for country residences of almost every description and size,
from the humblest peasant’s cottage, to the beautiful and
picturesque villa of the retired gentleman of fortune. In
the simple form ef the cottage, the whole may be con-
structed of wood very cheaply, and in the more elaborate
villa residence, stone, or brick and cement, may be preferred,
as being more permanent. No style so readily admits of
enrichment as that of the old English cottage when on a
considerable scale ; and by the addition of pointed verandas,
bay windows, and dormer-windows, by the introduction of
mullions and tracery in the window openings, and indeed,
by a multitude of interior and exterior enrichments gene-
rally applied to the Tudor mansions, a villa in the rural
Gothic style may be made a perfect gem of a country
residence. Of all the styles hitherto enumerated, we con-
sider this one of the most suitable for this country, as,

while it comes within the reach of all persons of moderate

404 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

means, it unites, as we before stated, so much of conve-
nience and rural beauty.*

To the man of taste, there is no style which presents
greater attractions, being at once rich in picturesque
beauty, and harmonious in connexion with the surrounding
forms of vegetation. The Grecian villa, with its simple
forms and horizontal lines,seems to us only in good keeping
when it is in a smooth, highly cultivated, peaceful scene.
But the Rural Gothic, the lines of which point upwards, in
the pyramidal gables, tall clusters of chimneys, finials, and
the several other portions of its varied outline, harmonizes
easily with the tall trees, the tapering masses of foliage, or
the surrounding hills; and while it is seldom or never
misplaced in spirited rural scenery, it gives character and
picturesque expression to many landscapes entirely devoid
of that quality.

What we have already said in speaking of the Italian
style, respecting the facility with which additions may be
made to irregular houses, applies with equal, or even
greater force, to the varieties of the Gothic style, just
described. From the very fact that the highest beauty of
these modes of building arises from their irregularity
(opposed to Grecian architecture, which, in its chaste
simplicity, should be regular), it is evident that additions

* The only objection that can be urged against this mode of building, is that
which applies to all cottages with a low second story, viz. want of coolness in
the sleeping chambers during mid-summer. An evil which may be remedied
by constructing a false inner-roof—leaving a vacuity between the two roofs of
six or eight inches, which being occupied with air and ventilated at the top, will
almost entirely obviate the objection.

In our Cotiage Residences, Design I., we have shown how the comfort of
a full second story, suitable for this climate, may be combined with the expres-
sion of the English cottage style.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 405

judiciously made will tend to increase this beauty, or afford
more facility for its display ; while it is equally evident
that in the interior arrangement, including apartments of
every description, superior opportunities are afforded for
attaining internal comfort and convenience, as well as
external effect.

The ideas connected in our minds with Gothic
architecture are of a highly romantic and poetical nature,
contrasted with the classical associations which the
Greek and Roman styles suggest. Although our own
country is nearly destitute of ruins and ancient time-
worn edifices, yet the literature of Kurope, and particularly
of what we term the mother country, is so much our own,
that we form a kind of delightful ideal acquaintance with
the venerable castles, abbeys, and strongholds of the
middle ages. Romantic as is the real history of those
times and places, to our minds their charm is greatly
enhanced by distance, by the poetry of legendary
superstition, and the fascination of fictitious narrative.
A castellated residence, therefore, in a wild and pictur-
esque situation, may be interesting, not only from its being
perfectly in keeping with surrounding nature, but from
the delightful manner in which it awakens associations
fraught with the most enticing history of the past.

The older domestic architecture of the English may be
viewed in another pleasing light. Their buildings and
residences have not only the recommendation of beauty
and complete adaptation, but the additional charm of
having been the homes of our ancestors, and the dwellings
of that bright galaxy of. English genius and worth, which
illuminates equally the intellectual firmament of both
hemispheres. He who has extended his researches, con

406 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

amore, into the history of the domestic life and habits of
those illustrious minds, will not, we are sure, forget that
lowly cottage by the side of the Avon, where the great
English bard was wont to dwell; the tasteful residence
of Pope at Twickenham; or the turrets and battlements
of the more picturesque Abbotsford ; and numberless other
examples of the rural buildings of England, once the
abodes of renowned genius. In truth, the cottage and
villa architecture of the English has grown out of the
feelings and habits of a refined and cultivated people,
whose devotion to country life, and fondness for all its
pleasures, are so finely displayed in the beauty of their
dwellings, and the exquisite keeping of their buildings and
grounds.

We must be permitted to quote, in further proof of
English taste and habits, and their results in their country
residences, the testimony of our countryman, Washington
Irving, in one of his most elegant essays. “The taste of
the English in the cultivation of land, and in what is called
Landscape Gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied
nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her
beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those
charms which in other countries she lavishes in wild
solitudes, are here assembled around the haunts of
domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and
furtive graces, and spread them like witchery about their
rural abodes. Nothing can be more imposing than the
magnificence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that
extend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there
clumps of gigantic trees heaping up rich piles of foliage.
The solemn group of groves and woodland glades, with
the deer trooping in silent herds across them; the hare

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 407

bounding away to the covert, or the pheasant bursting
suddenly upon the wing. The brook, taught to wind in
natural meanderings, or to expand into a glassy lake,—the
sequestered pool reflecting the quivering trees, with the
yellow leaf sleeping upon its bosom, and the trout roaming
fearlessly about its limpid waters; while some rustic
temple or sylvan statue, grown green and dark with age,
gives an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion.”

“These are but a few of the features of park scenery ;
but what most delights me, is the creative talent with
which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes of
middle life. The rudest habitation, the most unpromising
and scanty portion of land, in the hands of an Englishman
of taste, becomes a little paradise. With a nicely
discriminating eye he seizes at once upon its capabilities,
and pictures in his mind the future landscape. Thesterile
spot grows into loveliness under his hand; and yet the
operations of art which produce the effect are scarcely to
be perceived ; the cherishing and training of some trees:
the cautious pruning of others; the nice distribution of
flowers and plants of tender and graceful foliage; the
introduction of a green slope of velvet turf; the partial
opening to a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of
water,—all these are managed with a delicate tact, a per-
vading, yet quiet assiduity, like the magic touchings with
which a painter finishes up a favorite picture.”

“The residence of people of fortune and refinement in
the country, has diffused a degree of taste and elegance
that descends to the lowest class. The very laborer, with
his thatched cottage and narrow slip of ground, attends to
their embellishment. The trim hedge, the grass-plot before
the door, the little flower bed bordered with snug box, the

408 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

woodbine trained up against the wall, and hanging its
blossoms about the lattice; the pot of flowers in the
window ; the holly providentially planted about the house
to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw in a
semblance of green summer to cheat the fireside :—all
these bespeak the influence of taste flowing down from
high sources, and pervading the lowest levels of the public
mind. If ever Love, as the poets sing, delights to visit a
cottage, it must be the cottage of an English peasant.”

It is this love of rural life and this nice feeling of the
harmonious union of nature and art, that reflects so much
credit upon the English as a people, and which sooner or
later we hope to see completely naturalized in this country.
Under its enchanting influence, the too great bustle and
excitement of our commercial cities will be happily counter-
balanced by the more elegant and quiet enjoyments of
country life. Our rural residences, evincing that love of
the beautiful and the picturesque, which, combined with
solid comfort, is so attractive to the eye of every beholder,
will not only become sources of the purest enjoyment to
the refined minds of the possessors, but will exert an
influence for the improvement in taste of every class in
our community. The ambition to build “shingle palaces”
in starved and meagre grounds, we are glad to see giving
way to that more refined feeling which prefers a neat villa
or cottage, tastily constructed, and surrounded by its proper
accessories, of greater or less extent, of verdant trees and
beautiful shrubbery.

It is gratifying to see the progressive improvement in
Rural Architecture, which within a few years past has
evinced itself in various parts of the country, and par-
ticularly on the banks of the Hudson and Connecticut

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Rivers, as well as in the suburbs of our largest cities.
Here and there, beautiful villas and cottages in the Italian
or old English styles, are being erected by proprietors who
feel the pre-eminent beauty of these modes for domestic
architecture. And from the rapidity with which improve-
ments having just claims for public favor advance in our
community, we have every reason to hope that our Rural
Architecture will soon exhibit itself in a more attractive
and agreeable form than it has hitherto generally assumed.
We take pleasure in referring to a few of these buildings
more in detail.

The cottage of Thomas W. Ludlow, Esq., near Yonkers,
on the Hudson (Fig. 58), is one of the most complete
examples on this river. The interior is very carefully
and harmoniously finished, the apartments are agreeably
arranged, and the general effect of the exterior is varied
and pleasing.

There is scarcely a building or place more replete with
interest in America, than the cottage of Washington
Irving, near Tarrytown (Fig. 59). The “Legend of
Sleepy Hollow,” so delightfully told in the Sketch-Book,
has made every one acquainted with this neighborhood,
and especially with the site of the present building, there
celebrated as the “Van Tassel House,” one of the most
secluded and delightful nooks on the banks of the Hudson.
With characteristic taste, Mr. Irving has chosen this spot,
the haunt of his early days, since rendered classic ground
by his elegant pen, and made it his permanent residence.
The house of “ Baltus Van Tassel” has been altered and
rebuilt in a quaint .style, partaking somewhat of the
English cottage mode, but retaining strongly marked
symptoms of its Dutch origin. The quaint old weather-

410 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

cocks and finials, the crow-stepped gables, and the hall
paved with Dutch tiles, are among the ancient and
venerable ornaments of the houses of the original
settlers of Manhattan, now almost extinct among us.
There is also a quiet keeping in the cottage and the
grounds around it, that assists in making up the charm
of the whole; the gently swelling slope reaching down
to the water’s edge, bordered by prettily wooded ravines
through which a brook meanders pleasantly ; and thread-
ed by foot-paths ingeniously contrived, so as sometimes
to afford secluded walks, and at others to allow fine
vistas of the broad expanse of river scenery. The
cottage itself is now charmingly covered with ivy and
climbing roses, and embosomed in thickets of shrubbery.

Mr. Sheldon’s residence (Fig. 60), in the same neigh-
borhood, furnishes us with another example of the Rural
Gothic mode, worth the study of the amateur. Captain
Perry’s spirited cottage, near Sing Sing, partakes of the
same features; and we might add numerous other cottages
now building, or in contemplation, which show how fast
the feeling for something more expressive and picturesque
is making progress among us.

Mr. Warren’s residence at Troy, N. Y. (Fig. 61), is
a very pretty example of the English cottage, elegantly
finished internally as well as externally. A situation in
a valley, embosomed with luxuriant trees, would have
given this building a more appropriate and charming
air than its present one, which, however, affords a
magnificent prospect of the surrounding country.

It is the common practice here to place a portion of
what are called the domestic offices, as the kitchen,

pantries, etc., in the basement story of the house,

Fig. 61. Mr. Warren,’s Cottage, near Troy, He

410

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 411

directly beneath the living rooms. This has partly
arisen from the circumstance of the comparative economy
of this method of constructing them under the same
roof; and partly from the difficulty of adding wings to
the main building for those purposes, which will not
mar the simplicity and elegance of a Grecian villa. In
the better class of houses in England, the domestic
offices, which include the kitchen and its appurtenances,
and also the stable, coach-house, harness-room, etc., are
in the majority of cases attached to the main body of
the building on one side. The great advantage of
having all these conveniences on the same floor with
the principal rooms, and communicating in such a way
as to be easily accessible at all times without going into
the open air, is undeniable. It must also be admitted that
these domestic offices, extending out from the main
building, partly visible and partly concealed by trees and
foliage, add much to the extent and importance of a villa
or mansion in the country. In the old English style these
appendages are made to unite happily with the building,
which is in itself irregular. Picturesque effect is certainly
increased by thus extending the pile and increasing the
variety of its outline.

A blind partiality for any one style in building is detri-
mental to the progress of improvement, both in taste and
comfort. The variety of means, habits, and local feelings,
will naturally cause many widely different tastes to arise
among us ; and it is only by the means of a number of
distinct styles, that this diversity of tastes can be accom-
modated. There will always be a large class of individuals
in every country who prefer a plain square house because
it is more economical, and because they have little feeling

412 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

for architectural, or, indeed, any other species of beauty.
But besides such, there will always be found some men of
finer natures, who have a sympathetic appreciation of the
beautiful in nature and art. Among these, the classical
scholar and gentleman may, from association and the love
of antiquity, prefer a villa in the Grecian or Roman style.
He who has a passionate love of pictures and especially
fine landscapes, will perhaps, very naturally, prefer the
modern Italian style for a country residence. The wealthy
proprietor, either from the romantic and chivalrous asso-
ciations connected with the baronial castle, or from desire
to display his own resources, may indulge his fancy in
erecting a castellated dwelling. The gentleman who
wishes to realize the beau ideal of a genuine old English
country residence, with its various internal comforts, and
its spirited exterior, may establish himself in a Tudor villa
or mansion; and the lover of nature and rural life, who,
with more limited means, takes equal interest in the beauty
of his grounds or garden (however small) and his house—
who is both an admirer of that kind of beauty called the
picturesque, and has a lively perception of the effect of a
happy adaptation of buildings to the landscape,—such a
person will very naturally make choice of the rural cottage

style.

Entrance Lodges are not only handsome architectural
objects in the scenery of country residences of large size,
but are in many cases exceedingly convenient, both to the
family and the guests or visitors having frequent ingress
and egress. The entrance lodge may further be considered
a matter strictly useful, in serving as the dwelling of the

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 413

gardener or farmer and his family. In this point of view,
arrangements for the comfort and convenience of the
inmates should be regarded as more important than the
fanciful decoration of the exterior—as no exterior, however
charming, can, to a reflective and well regulated mind,
apologize for contracted apartments, and imperfect light
and ventilation, in human habitations.

Among the numerous entrance lodges which we remember
to have seen in the United States, we scarcely recall a single
example where the means, or rather the facility, of opening
and shutting the gate itself, has been sufliciently considered.
Most generally the lodge is at too great a distance from the
gate, consuming too mich time in attendance, and exposing
the persons attending, generally women or children, to the
inclemencies of the weather. Besides this, service of this
kind is less cheerfully performed in this country than in
Europe, from the very simple reason of the greater equality
of conditions here, and therefore everything which tends
to lessen labor, is worthy of being taken into account.

For these reasons we would place the gate very near the
lodge ; it would be preferable if it were part of the same
architectural composition: and if possible adopt the con-
trivance now in use at some places abroad, by which the
gate, being hung nearest the building, may be opened by
the occupant without the latter being seen, or being
scarcely obliged to leave his or her employment.* This

* In Fig. 62, is shown the section of a gate arranged upon this plan. At
the bottom of the hanging post of the gate, is a bevelled iron pinion, that works
into another pinion, 6, at the end of the horizontal shaft, a, which shaft is fixed
in a square box or tunnel under the road. The part to the right of the partition
line, f, is the interior of the gate-keeper’s house ; and by turning the winch, e,
the upright shaft, c, is put in motion, which moves by means of the bevelled
pinions, g, d, the shaft a, and therefore, through d, the back post of the gate,

”

414 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

is certainly the ultimatum of improvements in gate lodges ;
and where it cannot be attained, something may still be
done towards amelioration, by placing the gate within a
convenient distance, instead of half a dozen rods apart
from the lodge, as is frequently done.

That the entrance lodge should correspond in style with
the mansion, is a maxim insisted upon by all writers on
Rural Architecture. Where the latter is built in a mixed
style, there is more latitude allowed in the choice of forms
for the lodge, which may be considered more as a thing by
itself. But where the dwelling is a strictly architectural
composition. the lodge should correspond in style, and bear
evidence of emanating from the same mind. A variation

of the same style may be adopted with pleasing effect, as a

(Fig. 62. Plan for opening the gate from the interior of the Lodge.]
lodge in the form of the old English cottage for a castellated
mansion, or a Doric lodge for a Corinthian villa ; but never
two distinct styles on the same place (a Gothic gate-house
and a Grecian residence) without producing in minds
imbued with correct principles a feeling of incongruity.
A certain correspondence in size is also agreeable; where
the dwelling of the proprietor is simply an ornamental

which is opened and shut by the motion of the winch, without obliging the
inmates to leave the house.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 415

cottage, the lodge, if introduced, should be more simple and
unostentatious ; and even where the house is magnificent,
ihe lodge should rather be below the general air of the
residence than above it, that the stranger who enters at a
showy and striking lodge may not be disappointed in the
want of correspondence between it and the remaining
portions of the demesne.

[Fig. 63. The New Gate Lodge at Blithewood.]

The gate-lodge at Blithewood, on the Hudson, the seat
of R. Donaldson, Esq., is a simple and effective cottage in
the bracketed style—octagonal in its form, and very com-
pactly arranged internally.

Nearly all the fine seats on the North river have entrance
lodges—often simple and but little ornamented, or only
ace = pleasingly embowered in
foliage ; but, occasional-

ly, highly picturesque and
striking in appearance.

A view of the pretty
gate lodge at Nether-
wood, Duchess County
N. Y., the seat of Gardi-

[Fig.64. The Gate Lodge at Netherwood.]}

416 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ner Howland, Esq., is shown in Fig. 64. Half a mile
north of this seat is an interesting lodge in the Swiss
style, at the entrance to the residence of Mrs. Sheafe.

In Fig. 65, is shown an elevation of a lodge in the Italian
style, with projecting eaves supported by cantilevers or
brackets, round-headed windows with balconies, character-

istic porch, and other leading features of this style.

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[Fig. 65. Gate Lodge in the Italian style.]

Mr. Repton has stated it as a principle in the composition
of residences, that neither the house should be visible from
the entrance nor the entrance from the house, if there be
sufficient distance between them to make the approach
through varied grounds, or a park, and not immediately
into a court-yard.

Entrance lodges, and indeed all small ornamental build-
ings, should be supported, and partially concealed, by trees
and foliage ; naked walls, in the country, hardly admitting
of an apology in any case, but especially when the building
is ornamental, and should be considered part of a whole,

grouping with other objects in rural Jandscape.

RURAL ARCHITECTURE. 417

Nore.—To readers who desire to cultivate a taste for rural architecture, we
take pleasure in recommending the following productions of the English press.
Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture, a volume
replete with information on every branch of the subject ; Robinson’s Rural
Architecture and Designs for Ornamental Villas; Lugar’s Villa Archi-
tecture; Goodwin’s Rural Architecture ; Hunt's Picturesque Domestic
Architecture, and Examples of Tudor Architecture ; Pugin’s Examples of
Gothic Architecture, etc. The most successful American architects in this
branch of the art, with whom we are acquainted, are Alexander J. Davis, Esq.,
of New York, and John Notman, Esq., of Philadelphia.

SIS SS eee Soe

(Fig. 66. The Gardener’s House, Blithewood.]}

4i38 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

SECTION X.

EMBELLISHMENTS ; ARCHITECTURAL, RUSTIC, AND FLORAL.

Value of a proper connexion between the house and grounds. Beauty of the architectural
terrace, and its application to villas and cottages. Use of vases of different descriptions.
Sun-dials. Architectural flower-garden. Irregular flower-garden. French flower-garden.
English flower-garden. General remarks on this subject. Selection of showy plants,
flowering in succession. Arrangement of the shrubbery, and selection of choice shrubs.
The conservatory or green-house. Open and covered seats. Pavilions. Rustic seats.
Prospect tower. Bridges. Rockwork. Fountains of various descriptions. Judicious
introduction of decorations.

Nature, assuming a more lovely face,
Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace.
Cowrer.

Each odorous bushy shrub

Fenced up the verdant wall ; each beauteous flower ;
Tris all hues, Roses and Jessamine
Rear’d high their flourished heads between,

And wrought Mosaic.
Mirton.

N our finest places, or those

“, country seats where much of
the polish of pleasure ground
or park scenery is kept up, one of the most striking defects
is the want of “union between the house and the grounds.”

“

We are well aware that from the comparative rarity of any-
thing like a highly kept place in this country, the want of
this, which is indeed like the last finish to the residence, is
scarcely felt at all. But this only proves the infant state

EMBELLISHMENTS. 419

of Landscape Gardening here, and the little attention that
has been paid to the highest details of the art.

If our readers will imagine, with us, a pretty villa, con-
veniently arranged and well constructed, in short, complete
in itself as regards its architecture, and at the same time,
properly placed in a smooth well kept lawn, studded with
groups and masses of fine trees, they will have an example
often to be met with, of a place, in the graceful school of
design, about which, however, there is felt to be a certain
incongruity between the house, a highly artificial object,
and the surrounding grounds, where the prevailing ex-
pression in the latter is that of beautiful nature. :

Let us suppose, for further illustration, the same house
and grounds with a few additions. The house now rising
directly out of the green turf which encompasses it, we
will surround by a raised platform or terrace, wide enough
for a dry, firm walk, at all seasons; on the top of the wall
or border of this terrace, we will form a handsome parapet,
or balustrade, some two or three feet high, the details of
which shall be in good keeping with the house, whether
Grecian or Gothic. On the coping of this parapet, if the
house is in the classical style, we will find suitable places,
at proper intervals, fer some handsome urns, vases, etc.
On the drawing-room side of the house, that is, the side
towards which the best room or rooms look, we will place
the flower-garden, into which we descend from the terrace
by a few steps. This flower-garden may be simply what
its name denotes, a place exclusively devoted to the culti-

420 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

vation of flowers, or (if the house is not in a very plain
style, admitting of little enrichment) it may be an archi-
tectural flower-garden. In the latter case, intermingled
with the flowers, are to be seen vases, fountains, and some-
times even statues; the effect of the fine colors and deep
foliage of the former, heightened by contrast with the
sculptured forms of the latter.

If our readers will now step back a few rods with us and
take a second view of our villa residence, with its
supposed harmonizing accessories, we think they can hardly
fail to be impressed at once with the great improvement
of the whole. The eye now, instead of witnessing the
sudden termination of the architecture at the base of the
house, where the lawn commences as suddenly, will be at
once struck with the increased variety and richness
imparted to the whole scene, by the addition of the archi-
tectural and garden decorations. The mind is led
gradually down from the house, with its projecting porch
or piazzas, to the surrounding terrace crowned with its
beautiful vases, and from thence to the architectural
flower-garden, interspersed with similar ornaments. The
various play of light afforded by these sculptured forms on
the terrace ; the projections and recesses of the parapet,
with here and there some climbing plants luxuriantly
enwreathing it, throwing out the mural objects in stronger
relief, and connecting them pleasantly with the verdure of
the turf beneath; the still further rambling off of vases,
etc., into the brilliant flower-garden, which, through these
ornaments, maintains an avowed connexion with the
architecture of the house; all this, we think it cannot be

denied, forms a rich setting to the architecture, and unites

EMBELLISHMENTS. 421

agreeably the forms of surrounding nature with the more
regular and uniform outlines of the building.

The effect will not be less pleasing if viewed from
another point of view, viz. the terrace, or from the apart-
ments of the house itself. From either of these points, the
various objects enumerated, will form a rich foreground
to the pleasure-grounds or park—a matter which painters
well know how to estimate, as a landscape is incomplete
and unsatisfactory to them, however beautiful the middle
or distant points, unless there are some strongly marked
objects in the foreground. In fine, the intervention of
these elegant accompaniments to our houses prevents us,
as Mr. Hope has observed, “from launching at once from
the threshold of the symmetric mansion, in the most abrupt
manner, into a scene wholly composed of the most
unsymmetric and desultory forms of mere nature, which
are totally. out of character with the mansion, whatever
may be its style of architecture and furnishing.’”’*

The highly decorated terrace, as we have here supposed
it, would, it is evident, be in unison with villas of a some-
what superior style; or, in other words, the amount of
enrichment bestowed upon exterior decoration near the
house, should correspond to the style of art evinced in the
exterior of the mansion itself. An humble cottage with
sculptured vases on its terrace and parapet, would be in
bad taste; but any Grecian, Roman, or Italian villa, where
a moderate degree of exterior ornament is visible, or a
Gothic villa of the better class, will allow the additional
enrichment of the architectural terrace and its ornaments.
Indeed the terrace itself, in so far as it denotes a raised dry

* Essay on Ornamental Gardening, by Thomas Hope.

422 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

platform around the house, is a suitable and appropriate
appendage to every dwelling, of whatever class.

The width of a terrace around a house may vary from
five to twenty feet, or more, in proportion as the building
is of greater or less importance. The surrounding wall,
which supports its level, may also vary from one to eight
feet. The terrace, in the better class of English residences,
is paved with smooth flag stones, or in place of this, a sur-
face of firm well-rolled gravel is substituted. In residences
where a parapet or balustrade would be thought too
expensive, a square stone or plinth is placed at the angles
or four corners of the terrace, which serves as the pedestal
for a vase or urn. When a more elegant and finished
appearance is desirable, the parapet formed of open work
of stone, or wood painted in imitation of stone, rises above
the level of the terrace two or three feet with a suitably
bold coping. On this vases may be placed, not only at the
corners, but at regular intervals of ten, twenty, or more
feet. We have alluded to the good effect of climbers, here
and there planted, and suffered to intermingle their rich
foliage with the open work of the parapet and its crowning
ornaments. In the climate of Philadelphia, the Giant Ivy,
with its thick sculpturesque looking masses of foliage,
would be admirably suited to this purpose.’ Or the Vir-
ginia Creeper (the Ivy of America) may take its place in
any other portion of the Union. To these we may add,
the Chinese twining Honeysuckle (Lonicera flexuosa) and
the Sweet-scented Clematis, both deliciously fragrant in
their blossoms, with many other fine’ climbers which will
readily recur to the amateur.

There can be no reason why the smallest cottage, if its
occupant be a person of taste, should not have a terrace

EMBELLISHMENTS. 423

decorated in a suitable manner. This is easily and cheaply
effected by placing neat flower-pots on the parapet, or
border and angles of the terrace, with suitable plants grow-
ing in them. For this purpose, the American or Century
Aloe, a formal architectural-looking plant, is exceedingly
well adapted, as it always preserves nearly the
same appearance. Or in place of this, the
Yuccas, or “Adam’s needle and_ thread,’

which have something of the same character,

while they also produce beautiful heads of

(Fig. 67) flowers, may be chosen. Yucca flaccida is a
fine hardy species, which would look well
in such a situation. An aloe in a common
flower pot is shown in Fig. 67; and a

Yucca in an ornamental flower-pot in

Fig. 68. (Fig. 63]

Where there is a terrace ornamented with urns or vases,
and the proprietor wishes to give a corresponding air of
elegance to his grounds, vases, sundials, etc., may be placed
in various appropriate situations, not only in the architec-
tural flower-garden, but on the lawn, and through the
pleasure-grounds in various different points near the house.
We say near the house, because we think so highly arti-
ficial and architectural an object as a sculptured vase, is
never correctly introduced unless it appear in some way
connected with buildings, or objects of a like architectural
character. To place a beautiful vase in a distant part of
the grounds, where there is no direct allusion to art, and
where it is accompanied only by natural objects, as the
overhanging trees and the sloping turf, is in a measure
doing violence to our reason or taste, by bringing two

objects so strongly contrasted, in direct union. But when

424 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

we see a statue or a vase placed in any part of the grounds
where a near view is obtained of the house (and its accom-
panying statues or vases), the whole is accounted for, and
we feel the distant vase to be only a part of, or rather a
repetition of the same idea,—in other words, that it forms
part of a whole, harmonious and consistent.

Vases of real stone, as marble or granite, are decorations
of too costly a kind ever to come into general use among
us. Vases, however, of equally beautiful forms, are manu-
factured of artificial stone, of fine pottery, or of cast iron,
which have the same effect, and are of nearly equal dura-
bility, as garden decorations.

A vase should never, in the open air, be set down upon
the ground or grass, without being placed upon a firm base
of some description, either a plinth or a pedestal. Without
a base of this kind it has a temporary look, as if it had been
left there by mere accident, and without any intention of
permanence. Placing it upon a pedestal, or square plinth
(block of stone), gives it a character of art, at once more
dignified and expressive of stability. Besides this, the
pedestal in reality serves to preserve the vase in a perpen-
dicular position, as well as to expose it fairly to the eye,
which could not be the case were it put down, without any
preparation, on the bare turf or gravel.

Figure 69 is a Gothic, and Figures 70, 71, are
| Grecian vases, commonly manufactured in plaster

in our cities, but which are also made of Roman
cement. They are here shown upon suitable
pedestals—a being the vase, and b the pedestal.

These with many other elegant vases and urns are

a manufactured in an artificial stone, as durable as
ig. 69.

marble, by Austin of London, and together with a great

>>.

EMBELLISHMENTS. 425

variety of other beautiful sculpturesque decorations, may
be imported at very reasonable prices.

Figures 70, 71, are beautiful vases of pottery ware
manufactured by Peake, of Staffordshire—and which may
be imported cheaply, or will be made to order at the Sala-
mander works, in New York. These vases, when colored

[EGIIO SSS tO imitate marble or other stone, are ex-

tremely durable and very ornamental.
As yet, we are unable to refer our readers
to any manufactory here, where these
articles are made in a manner fully equal
to the English ; but we are satisfied, it is
only necessary that the taste for such
articles should increase, and the conse-
| quent demand, to induce our artisans to
eee) produce them of equal beauty and of
greater cheapness.
At Blithewood, the seat of R. Donaldson, Esq., on the

Hudson, a number of exquisite vases may

be seen in the pleasure-grounds, which are
cut in Maltese stone. These were imported | i
by the proprietor, direct from Malta, at very
moderate rates, and are not only ornamen-
tal, but very durable. Their color is a
warm shade of grey which harmonizes
agreeably with the surround- ;
ing vegetation.
Large vases are sometimes (Fig. 71.]

filled with earth and planted with choice flow-
ering plants, and the effect of the blossoms and

green leaves growing out of these handsome

receptacles, is at least unique and striking

426 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Loudon objects to it in the case of an elegant sculp-
tured vase, “because it is reducing a work of art to the
level of a mere garden flower-pot, and dividing the
attention between the beauty of the form of the vase
and of its sculptured ornaments, and that of the plant
which it contains.” This criticism is a just one in its
general application, especially when vases
are considered as architectural decorations.
Occasional deviations, however, may be per-
mitted, for the sake of producing variety,
especially in the case of vases used as deco-
rations in the flower-garden.

A very pretty and fanciful substitute for

the sculptured vase, and which may take its

place in the picturesque landscape, may be
found in vases or baskets of rustic work, con- [Fig. 73]

structed of the branches and sections of trees with the
bark attached. Figure 74 is a re-
presentation of a pleasing rustic vase

which we have constructed without

forms the pedestal. An octagonal box

serves as the body or frame of the vase ;

3 a

on this, pieces of birch and hazel (small
' (Fig. 74] split limbs covered with the bark) are
nailed closely, so as to forma sort of mosaic covering to the
whole exterior. Ornaments of this kind, which may be
made by the amateur with the assistance of a common
carpenter, are very suitable for the decoration of the
grounds and flower-gardens of cottages or picturesque

villas. An endless variety of forms will occur to an

EMBELLISHMENTS. 427

ingenious artist in rustic work, which he may call in to the
embellishment of rural scenes, without taxing his purse
heavily.

Sundials (Fig. 75) are among the oldest decorations for
the garden and grounds, and there are scarcely any which
we think more suitable. They are not merely
decorative, but have also an useful character, and
may therefore be occasionally placed in distant
parts of the grounds, should a favorite walk ter-
minate there. When we meet daily in our walks
for a number of years, with. one of these silent
monitors of the flight of time, we become in a
degree attached to it, and really look upon it as
gifted with a species of intelligence, beaming out
when the sunbeams smile upon its dial-plate.

(Fig. 75.) The Architectural Flower-garden, as we
have just-remarked, has generally a direct connexion with
the house, at least on one side by the terrace. It may be
of greater or less size, from twenty feet square to half an
acre in extent. The leading characteristics of this species
of flower-garden, are the regular lines and forms employed
in its beds and walks. The flowers are generally planted
in beds in the form of circles, octagons, squares, etc., the
centre of the garden being occupied by an elegant vase, a
sundial, or that still finer ornament, a fountain, or jet d'eau.
In various parts of the garden, along the principal walks,
or in the centre of parterres, pedestals supporting vases,
urns, or handsome flower-pots with plants, are placed.
When a highly marked character of art is intended, a
balustrade or parapet, resembling that of the terrace to
which it is connected, is continued round the whole of

428 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

this garden. Or in other cases the garden is surrounded
by a thicket of shrubs and low trees, partly concealing it
from the eye on all sides but one.

It is evident that the architectural flower-garden is
superior to the general flower-garden, as an appendage
to the house, on two accounts. First, because, as we
have already shown, it serves an admirable purpose
in effecting a harmonious union between the house and the
grounds. And secondly, because we have both the rich
verdure and gay blossoms of the flowering plants, and the
more permanent beauty of sculptured forms; the latter
heightening the effect of the former by contrast, as well as
by the relief they afford the eye in masses of light, amid
surrounding verdure.

There are several varieties of general flower-gardens,
which may be formed near the house. Among these we
will only notice the irregular flower-garden, the old French
flower-garden, and the modern or English flower-garden.

In almost all the different kinds of flower-gardens, two
methods of forming the beds are observed. One is, to cut
the beds out of the green turf, which is ever afterwards

(Fig. 76. The Irregular mites

EMBELLISHMENTS. 429

kept well-mown or cut for the walks, and the edges pared ;
the other, to surround the beds with edgings of verdure, as
box, etc., or some more durable material, as tiles, or cut
stone, the walks between being covered with gravel. The
turf is certainly the most agreeable for walking upon in
the heat of summer, and the dry part of the day ; while
the gravelled flower-garden affords a dry footing at nearly
all hours and seasons.

The irregular flower-garden is surrounded by an irregu-
lar belt of trees and ornamental shrubs of the choicest
species, and the beds are varied in outline, as well as
irregularly disposed, sometimes grouping together, some-
times standing singly, but exhibiting no uniformity of
arrangement. An idea of its general appearance may be
gathered from the accompanying sketch (Fig. 76), which
may be varied at pleasure. In it the irregular boundary
of shrubs is shown at a, the flower-beds b, and the walks e.

This kind of flower-garden would be a suitable accom-
paniment to the house and grounds of an enthusiastic
lover of the picturesque, whose residence is in the Rural
Gothic style, and whose grounds are also eminently varied
and picturesque. Or it might form a pretty termination
to a distant walk in the pleasure-grounds, where it would
be more necessary that the flower-garden should be in
keeping with the surrounding plantations and scenery than
with the house.

Where the flower-garden is a spot set apart, of any
regular outline, not of large size, and especially where it is
attached directly to the house, we think the effect is most
satisfactory when the beds or walks are laid out in sym-
metrical forms. Our reasons for this are these: the
flower-garden, unlike distant portions of the pleasure-

430 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

ground scenery, is an appendage to the house, seen in the
same view or moment with it, and therefore should exhibit
something of the regularity which characterizes, in a
greater or less degree, all architectural compositions ; and
when a given scene is so small as to be embraced in a
single glance of the eye, regular forms are found to be
more satisfactory than irregular ones, which, on so small a
scale, are apt to appear unmeaning.

The French flower-garden is the most fanciful of the
regular modes of laying out the area devoted to this purpose.
The patterns or figures employed are often highly intricate,
and require considerable skill in their formation. The
walks are either of gravel or smoothly shaven turf, and the
beds are filled with choice flowering plants. It is evident
that much of the beauty of this kind of flower-garden, or
indeed any other where the figures are regular and intri-
cate, must depend on the outlines of the beds, or parterres
of embroidery, as they are called, being kept distinct and
clear. To do this effectually, low growing herbaceous
plants or border flowers, perennials and annuals, should be
chosen, such as will not exceed on an average, one or two
feet in height.

In the English flower-garden, the beds are either in
symmetrical forms and figures, or they are characterized
by irregular curved outlines. The peculiarity of these
gardens, at present so fashionable in England, is, that each
separate bed is planted with a single variety, or at most
two varieties of flowers. Only the most striking and
showy varieties are generally chosen, and the effect, when
the selection is judicious, is highly brilliant. Each bed, in
its season, presents a mass of blossoms, and the contrast of
rich colors is much more striking than in any other

EMBELLISHMENTS. 431

arrangement. No plants are admitted that are shy bloom-
ers, or which have ugly habits of growth, meagre or starved
foliage; the aim being brilliant effect, rather than the
display of a great variety of curious or rare plants. To
bring this about more perfectly, and to have an elegant
show during the whole season of growth, hyacinths and
other fine bulbous roots occupy a certain portion of the
beds, the intervals being filled with handsome herbaceous
plants, permanently planted, or with flowering annuals and
green-house plants renewed every season.

To illustrate the mode of arranging the beds and disposing
the plants in an English garden, we copy the plan and
description of the elegant flower-garden, on the lawn at
Dropmore, the beds being cut out of the smooth turf.

“The flower-garden at Dropmore is shown in Fig. 77.
In this the plants are so disposed, that when in flower the
corresponding forms of the figure contain corresponding
colored flowers. The following is a list of the plants which
occupy this figure during summer, with the order in which
they are disposed : and a corresponding enumeration of the
bulbs and other plants which occupy the beds during winter
and spring.

(Fig. 77. The Flower-Garden at Dropmore.]

LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

In Summer.
Beps.
1. Rosa Indica (blush China), bordered with R. Semperflorens flore
pleno, and R. Indica minor.
2. Pelargonium inquinans (Scarlet Geranium).
3. Verbena Lamberti. :
4. Senecio elegans, flore pleno. (Double Jacobea.)
5. 5. Alonsoa incisifolia.
6. 6. Agathea excelsis.
7. Fuchsia coccinea (Lady’s Eardrop), bordered with Double Prim-
rose.
8. Helitropium peruvianum.
9. Ruellia formosa.
10. Ageratum mexicanum. ‘
11. Dianthus chinensis (Indian Pink), and Mignonette.
12. Lobelia splendens.
13. Dianthus satifolius.
14. Lobelia unidentata.

15.

15. 15. Choice herbaceous plants not exceeding one foot six inches
in height.

16. 16. Gladiolus cardinalis.
17. Pelargonium lateripis (pink-flowered variegated Ivy Geranium).
18. Anagallis grandiflora.
19. Anagallis Monelli.
20. Pelargonium coruseans (Fiery-red Geranium.)
21. Prince of Orange Geranium.
22. Cénothera cespitosa.
23. CEnothera missouriensis (Missouri evening Primrose).
24. Scarlet flowered variegated leaved Geranium.
25. Malope trifida.
26. Lobelia fulgens.
27. Petunia Pheenicea. :
28. Commelina celestis.
29. Cistus guttatus.
30. Campanula pentagona.
31. Four seasons Rose, and Mignonette.
32. Bouvardia triphylla.
33. Double Nasturtium.
Iy Winter anv SPRING.

Beps.

1. Anemone Coronaria.

2.2. Malcomia maritima (Mediterranean stock).

i 4.*4

EMBELLISHMENTS. 433

Beps.
3 and 4. Fine varieties of Tulips.
5. 5. Double rocket Larkspur (sown in autumn).
6. 6. Agathea celestis.
7. Scilla nutans (blue harebell).
8. Feathered Hyacinths.
9 and 10. Sweet scented Tulips.
11. Double garden Tulips.
12. Single gesneriana Tulips.
13 and 14. Tritonia crocata, and Tritonia fenestra, kept in frames in
mid-winter.
15. 15. 15. 15. Choice herbaceous plants not exceeding one foot six
inches in height.
16.16. Hyacinths, double blue, plunged in pots.
17. Hyacinths, double red, do.
18 and 19. MHyacinths, single blue variety.
20 and 21. Single white Hyacinths.
22 and 23. Crocus vernus and biflorus.
24. Hyacinths, double red.
25 and 26. Tulips, double yellow.
27. Hyacinths, double white.
28. Muscari botryoides, (Grape Hyacinth).
29. Oxalis caprina (kept in frames in mid-winter).
30. Scilla verna (Spring Harebell).
31. Muscari racemosum, the border of Viola tricolor in sorts.
32. MHyacinths, double white.
33. Double rose Larkspur.

“ As a general principle for regulating the plants in this
figure, the winter and spring flowers ought, as much as
possible, to be of sorts which admit of being in the ground
all the year: and the summer crop should be planted at
intervals between the winter plants. Or the summer crop,
having been brought forward in pots under glass, or by
nightly protection, may be planted out about the middle of
June, after the winter plants in pots are removed. A
number of hardy bulbs ought to be potted and plunged in
the beds in the months of October and November ; and

when out of bloom, in May or June, removed to the reserve
28

434 : LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

garden and plunged there, in order to perfect their foliage
and mature their bulbs for the succeeding season.’’*
There cannot be a question that this method of planting
the flower-garden in groups and masses, is productive of
by far the most splendid effect. In England, where flower- —
gardens are carried to their greatest perfection, the pre-
ference in planting is given to exotics which blossom
constantly throughout the season, and which are kept in
the green-house during winter, and turned out in the
beds in the early part of the season, where they flower in

the greatest profusion until frost; as Fuchsias, Salvias,

eS eo ee
Eo Gia

Gey

[Fig. 78, English Flower-Garden.}

* Eney. of Gardening, 1000.

4 * il eee Se Z whe
Ps 1”, nd .

a Saas i ae : :
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EMBELLISHMENTS. 435

Lobelias, Scarlet Geraniums, etc., etc.* This mode can
be adopted here where a small green-house or frame is
kept. In the absence of these, nearly the same effect may
be produced by choosing the most showy herbaceous plants,
perennial and biennial, alternating them with hardy bulbs,
and the finer species of annuals.

In Fig. 78, we give an example of a small cottage or
villa residence of one or two acres, where the flower-beds
are disposed around the lawn in the English style: their —
forms irregular, with curved outlines, affording a great
degree of variety in the appearance as viewed from differ-
ent points on the lawn itself. In this, the central portion
is occupied by the lawn; c, d, are the flower-beds, planted
with showy’ border-flowers, in separate masses; b, the
conservatory. Surrounding the whole is a collection of
choice shrubs and trees, the lowest near the walk, and those
behind increasing in-altitude as they approach the boundary
wall or fence. In this plan, as there is supposed to be no
exterior view worth preserving, the amphitheatre of shrubs
and trees completely shuts out all objects but the lawn and
its decorations, which are rendered as elegant as possible.

Where the proprietor of a country residence, or the
ladies of a family, have a particular taste, it may be indulged
at pleasure in other and different varieties of the flower-
garden. With some families there is a taste for botany,

* In many English residences, the flower-garden is maintained in never-
fading brillianey by almost daily supplies frem what is termed the reserve
garden. This is a small garden out of sight, in which a great number of
duplicates of the species in the flower-garden are grown in pots plunged in
beds. As soon as a vacuum is made in the flower-garden by the fading of any
flowers, the same are immediately removed and their places supplied by fresh
plants just ready to bleom, from the pots in the reserve garden. This, which is

the ultimatum of refinement in flower-gardening, has never, to our knowledge,

been attempted in this country.

436 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

when a small botanic flower-garden may be preferred—the
herbaceous and other plants being grouped or massed in
beds after the Linnean, or the natural method. Some
persons have an enthusiastic fondness for florist flowers, as
Pansies, Carnations, Dahlias, Roses, etc.; others for bulbous
roots, all of which may very properly lead to particular
modes of laying out flower-gardens.

The desideratum, however, with most persons is, to have
a continued display of blossoms in the flower-garden from
the opening of the crocus and snowdrop in the spring,
until the autumnal frosts cut off the last pale asters, or
blacken the stems of the luxuriant dahlias in November.
This may be done with a very.small catalogue of plants if
they are properly selected: such as flower at different
seasons, continue long time in bloom, and present fme
masses of flowers. On the other hand, a very large num-
ber of species may be assembled together; and owing to
their being merely botanical rarities, and not bearing fme
flowers, or to their blossoming chiefly in a certain portion
of the season, or continuing but a short period m bloom,
the flower-garden will often have but an insignificant
appearance. With a group of Pansies and spring bulbs, a
bed of ever-blooming China Roses, including the Isle de
Bourbon varieties, some few Eschscholtzias, the showy
Petunias, Gilias, and other annuals, and a dozen choice
double Dahlias, and some trailing Verbenas, a limited spot,
of a few yards in diameter, may be made productive of
more enjoyment, so far as regards a continued display of
flowers, than ten times that space, planted, as we often see
flower-gardens here, with a heterogeneous mixture of
everything the possesor can lay his hands on, or crowd
within the inclosure.

EMBELLISHMENTS. 437

The mingled flower-garden, as it is termed, is by far the
most common mode of arrangement in this country, though
it is seldom well effected. The object in this is to dispose
the plants in the beds in such a manner, that while there
is no predominance of bloom in any one portion of the beds,
there shall be a general admixture of colors and blossoms
throughout the entire garden during the whole season of
growth.

To promote this, the more showy plants should be often —
repeated in different parts of the garden, or even the same
parterre when large, the less beautiful sorts being suffered
to occupy but moderate space. The smallest plants should
be nearest the walk, those a little taller behind them, and
the largest should be furthest from the eye, at the back of
the border, when the latter is seen from one side only, or
in the centre, if the bed be viewed from both sides. A
neglect of this simple rule will not only give the beds, when
the plants are full grown, a confused look, but the beauty
of the humbler and more delicate plants will be lost amid
the tall thick branches of sturdier plants, or removed so
far from the spectator in the walks, as to be overlooked.

Considerable experience is necessary to arrange even a
moderate number of plants in accordance with these rules.
To perform it successfully, some knowledge of the habits
of the plants is an important requisite ; their height, time
of flowering, and the colors of their blossoms. When a
gardener, or an amateur, is perfectly informed on these
points, he can take a given number of plants of different _
species, make a plan of the bed or all the beds of a flower- .
garden upon paper, and designate the particular situation
of each species.

To facilitate the arrangement of plants in this manner,

438 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

we here subjoin a short list of the more showy perennial
and annual hardy border flowers, such as are easily pro-
cured here for the use of those who are novices in the art.
and who wish to cultivate a taste for the subject.

No. 1, Designates the first class, which grow from six to
twelve inches in height.

No. 2, Those which grow from one to two feet.

No. 3, Those which are over two feet in height.

Harpy PerrenniA,s.

FLOWERING In APRIL.

Anemone thalictroides, pl. Double wood Anemone ; white.
Anemone pulsatilla. Pasque flower ; blue.

Anemone hepatica, pl. Double Hepatieas ; blue.

Viola odorata, pl. Double white and blue European violets.
Omphalodes verna. Blue Venus Navelwort.

Polemonium reptans. Greek Valerian ; blue.

Phlox stolonifera. Creeping Phlox; red.

Phlox divaricata. Early purple Phlox.

Primula veris. The Cowslip ; yellow and red.

Primula polyanthu. 'The Polyanthus ; purple.

Primula auricula. The Auricula ; purple.

Viola tricolor. Heart’s Ease or Pansy ; many colors and sorts.
Viola grandiflora. Purple Pansy.

Sazifraga crassifolia. Thick-leaved Saxifrage ; lilac.

Phlox subulata. Moss pink Phlox.

Phlox nivea. White Moss Pink.

Gentiana acaulis. Dwarf Gentian ; purple.
Adonis vernalis. Spring fl. Adonis; yellow.
Dodecatheon meadia. American Cowslip ; lilac.
Pulmonaria virginica. Virginian Lungwort ; purple.
Alyssum sazxatile. Golden basket ; yellow.
* Trollius europeus. European Globe flower ; yellow.

KB wond nd YH HRP SP RP NOP BP SP RP eee Pe ee

Corydalis cucularia. Breeches-flower ; white.
May.

1. Veronica gentianoides. Gentian leaved Speedwell ; blue.

hr PPVYYV YY YYUYWYYYDYDYYYDE EE Ee DOWD

wenn

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EMBELLISHMENTS. 439

Veronica spicata. Blue spiked Speedwell.

Pentstemon ovata. Oval leaved Pentstemon ; blue.
Pentstemon atropurpureus. Dark purple Pentstemon.
Orobus niger. Dark purple Vetch.

Jeffersonia diphylla. Five-leaved Jeffersonia ; white.
Lysimachia nummularia. Trailing Loose-strife ; yellow.
Convallaria majalis. Lily of the Valley ; white.
Saponaria ocymoides. Basil-like Soapwort ; red.

Phlox pilosa. UHairy Phlox ; red.

Anchusa Italica. Italian Bugloss ; blue.

Ranunculus acris, pl. Double Buttereups ; yellow.
Tradescantia virginica. Blue and white Spiderwort.
Lupinus polyphyllus. Purple Lupin.

Tris siberiaca. Siberian Iris; blue.

Iris florentina. Florentine Iris ; white.

Peonia tenuifolia. Smal! leaved Peony ; red.

Paonia albiflora. Single white Peony.

Lupinus nootkaensis. Nootka Sound Lupin ; blue.
Hesperis matronalis, alba, pl. The double white Rocket.
Phlox suaveolens. The white Phlox or Lychnidea.
Phloz maculata. 'The purple spotted Phlox.
Hemerocallis fava. 'The yellow Day-Lily.

Lupinus perennis and rivularis. Perennial Lupins ; blue.
Lychnis flos cuculi, pl. Double ragged-Robin ; red.
Papaver orientalis. Oriental scarlet Poppy.

Aquilegia canadensis. Wild Columbine ; scarlet.
Houstonia cerulea. Blue Houstonia.

June.

Spirea filipendula, pl. Double Pride of the Meadow ; white.

Spirea lobata. Siberian Spirea ; red.

Spirea Ulmaria, pl. Double Meadow-sweet ; white.

Delphinium grandiflorum, pl. Double dark blue Larkspur.

Delphinium chinense, pl. Double Chinese Larkspur ; blue.

Dianthus hortensis. Garden Pinks, many double sorts and colors.

Caltha palustris, pl. Double marsh Marygold ; yellow.

Cypripedium pubescens. Yellow Indian moceasin.

Polemonium ceruleum, and album, Common white and blue Greek
Valerian. ‘

Campanula persicifolia, pl. Double peach-leaved Campanula ;
white.

Antirrhinum majus. Red and white Snapdragons.

440

PP w MY ww wwwow ewe ewe ee we Dw

SOR PS | is NO SO OL er tte)

LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Geranium sanguineum. Bloody Geranium; red.

Viscaria vulgaris, pl. White and red Viscaria.

GEnothera fruticosa. Shrubby Evening Primrose ; yellow.
Eschscholtzia californica. Golden Eschscholtzia ; yellow.
Lychnis fulgens. Fulgent Lychnis; red.

Dianthus chinensis. Indian Pinks ; variegated.

Dianthus caryophyllus. Carnation ; variegated.

Verbena multifida. Cut-leaved Verbena ; purple.

Verbena Lamberti. Lambert’s Verbena ; purple.
Campanula grandiflora. Large blue Bell-flower.
Aconitum Napellus. Monkshood; purple.

Aconitum Napellus, variegated. Purple and white Monkshood.
Campanula ranunculoides. Nodding Bell-flower ; blue.
Clematis integrifolia. Austrian blue Clematis.

Verbascum pheniceum. Purple Mullein.

Clematis erecta. Upright Clematis ; white.

Linum perenne. Perennial Flax; blue.

Peonia Humei. Double blush Peony.

Peonia fragrans. Double fragrant Peony ; rose.

Peonia whitleji. Double white Peony.

Gaillardia aristata. Bristly Gaillardia ; yellow.
Asphodelus ramosus. Branchy Asphodel ; white.
Pentstemon speciosa. Showy Pentstemon ; blue.

Iris Susana. Chalcedonian Iris ; mottled.

JULY.

Dictamnus Fraxinella. Purple Fraxinella.

Dictamnus alba. White Fraxinella.

Pentstemon Richardsonii. Richardson’s Pentstemon ; purple.
Pentstemon pubescens. Downy Pentstemon ; lilac.

Anchusa officinalis. Common Bugloss ; blue.

Campanula carpathica. Carpathian Bell-flower ; blue.

Monarda didyma. Scarlet Balm.

Gnothera Fraseri. Fraser's Evening Primrose ; yellow.
Cnothera macrocarpa. Large podded Evening Primrose ; yellow.
Sedum populifolium. Poplar leaved Sedum ; white.

Campanula Trachelium, pl. Double white and blue Bell-flowers.
Potentilla Russelliana. Russell’s Cinquefoil ; red.

Dianthus delioides. Mountain Pink; red.

Veronica maritima. Maritime Speedwell ; blue.

Delphinium speciosum. Showy Larkspur ; blue.

Campanula macrantha. large blue Bell-flower.

3.
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EMBELLISHMENTS. 441

Penjstemon Digitalis. Missouri Pentstemon ; white.
Hibiscus palustris. Swamp Hibiscus ; red.
LIychnis Chalcedonica. Single and double scarlet Lychnis.
Chelone Lyoni. Purple Chelone.

Chelone barbata. Bearded Chelone ; orange.
Dracocephalum grandiflorum. Dragon’s Head ; purple.
Lythrum latifolium. Perennial Pea; purple.

Auveust.

Catananche caerulea. Blue Catananche.

Corydalis formosa. Red Fumitory.

Phlox carnea. Flesh colored Phlox.

Asclepias tuberosa. Orange Swallowwort.

Veronica carnea. Flesh colored Speedwell.
Gajllardia bicolor. Orange Gaillardia.

Hemerocallis japonica. Japan Day-Lily ; white.
Dianthus superbus. Superb fringed Pink ; white.
Lobelia cardinalis. Cardinal-flower ; red.

Iychnis coronata. Chinese orange Lychnis.

Lythrum salicaria. Willow Herb ; purple.

Yucca filamentosa. Adam’s Thread ; white.

Yucca flaccida. Flaccid Yucea; white.

Phlox paniculata. Panicled Phlox ; purple and white.
Campanula pyramidalis. Pyramidal Bell-flower ; blue and white
Liatris squarrosa. Blazing Star ; blue.

Epilobium spicatum. Purple spiked Epilobium.
Coreopsis tenuifolia. Fine-leaved Coreopsis ; yellow.
Cassia Marylandica. Maryland Cassia; yellow.

SEPTEMBER AND OcTOBER.

Achillea Ptarmica, pl. Double Milfoil ; white.
Coreopsis grandiflora. Large yellow Coreopsis.
Aster linifolius. Fine-leaved Aster ; white.
Eupatorium celestinum. Azure blue Eupatorium.
Phlox Wheeleriana. Wheeler's Phlox ; red.

‘Aster macrophyllus. Broad-leaved Aster ; white.

Eupatorium aromaticum. Fragrant Eupatorium ; white.
Liatris elegans. Elegant Blazing Star ; purple.
Liatris spicata and scariosa. Blue Blazing Stars.
Gentiana saponaria. Soapwort Gentian ; blue.

Aster nove-anglie. New England Aster ; purple.

442 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

3. Echinops retro. Globe Thistle. .
3. Chrysanthemum indicum. Artemisias, many sorts and colors.

The shrubbery is so generally situated in the neighbor-
hood of the flower-garden and the house, that we, shall
here offer a few remarks on its arrangement and distri-
bution.

A collection of flowering shrubs is so ornamental, that
to a greater or less extent it is to be found in almost every
residence of the most moderate size: the manner in which
the shrubs are disposed, must necessarily depend in a great
degree upon the size of the grounds, the use or enjoyment
to be derived from them, and the prevailing character of
the scenery.

It is evident, on a moment’s reflection, that shrubs being
intrinsically more ornamental than trees, on account of the
beauty and abundance of their flowers, they will generally
be placed near and about the house, in order that their gay
blossoms and fine fragrance may be more constantly
enjoyed, than if they were scattered indiscriminately over
the grounds.

Where a place is limited in size, and the whole lawn and
plantations partake of the pleasure-ground character,
shrubs of all descriptions may be grouped with good effect,
in the same manner as trees, throughout the grounds ; the
finer and rarer specics being disposed about the dwelling,
and the more hardy and common sorts along the walks,
and in groups, in different situations near the eye.

When, however, the residence is of larger size, and the
grounds have a park-like extent and character, the intro-
duction of shrubs might interfere with the noble and
dignified expression of lofty full grown trees, except
perhaps they were planted here and there, among large

EMBELLISHMENTS. 443

groups, as underwood ; or if cattle or sheep were allowed
to graze in the park, it would of course be impossible to
preserve plantations of shrubs there. When this is the
case, however, a portion near the house is divided from the
park (by a wire fence or some inconspicuous barrier) for
the pleasure-ground, where the shrubs are disposed in belts,
groups, etc., as in the first case alluded to.

There are two methods of grouping shrubs upon lawns
which may separately be considered, in combination with
beautiful and with picturesque scenery.

In the first case, where the character of the scene, of
the plantations of trees, etc., is that of polished beauty, the —
belts of shrubs may be arranged similar to herbaceous
flowering plants, in arabesque beds, along the walks, as in
Fig. 76, page 428. In this case, the shrubs alone, arranged
with relation to their height, may occupy the beds; or if
preferred, shrubs and flowers may be intermingled. Those
who have seen the shrubbery at Hyde Park, the residence
of the late Dr. Hosack, which borders the walk leading
from the mansion to the hot-houses, will be able to recall
a fine example of this mode of mingling woody and
herbaceous plants. The belts or borders occupied by the
shrubbery and flower-garden there, are perhaps from 25 to
35 feet in width, completely filled with a collection of
shrubs and herbaceous plants; the smallest of the latter
being quite near the walk ; these succeeded by taller species
receding from the front of the border, then follow shrubs
of moderate size, advancing in height until the back-
ground of the whole is a rich mass of tall shrubs and trees
of moderate size. The effect of this belt on so large a
scale, in high keeping, is remarkably striking and elegant.

Where picturesque effect is the object aimed at in the

444 LANDSCAPE GARDENING,

pleasure-grounds, it may be attained in another way; that
is, by planting irregular groups of the most vigorous and
thrifty growing shrubs in lawn, without placing them in
regular dug beds or belts; but instead of this, keeping the
crass from growing and the soil somewhat loose, for a few
inches round their stems (which will not be apparent at a
short distance). In the case of many of the hardier shrubs,
after they become well established, even this care will not
be requisite, and the grass only will require to be kept short
by clipping it when the lawn is mown.

As in picturesque scenes everything depends upon
grouping well, it will be found that shrubs may be employed
with excellent effect in connecting single trees, or finishing
a group composed of large trees, or giving fulness to groups
of tall trees newly planted on a lawn, or effecting a union
between buildings and ground. It is true that it requires
something of an artist’s feeling and perception of the pic-
turesque to do these successfully, but the result is so much
the more pleasing and satisfactory when it is well executed.

When walks are continued from the house through dis-
tant parts of the pleasure-grounds, groups of shrubs may be
planted along their margins, here and there, with excellent
effect. They do not shut out or obstruct the view like
large trees, while they impart an interest to an otherwise
tame and spiritless walk. Placed in the projecting bay,
round which the walk curves so as to appear to be a reason
for its taking that direction, they conceal also the portion
of the walk in advance, and thus enhance the interest
doubly. The neighborhood of rustic seats, or resting points,
are also fit places for the assemblage of a group or groups
of shrubs.

For the use of those who require some guide in the

EMBELLISHMENTS. y 443

selection of species, we subjoin the accompanying list of
hardy and showy shrubs, which are at the same time easily
procured in the United States. A great number of addi-
tional species and varieties, and many more rare, might be
enumerated, but such will be sufficiently familiar to the
connoisseur already ; and what we have said respecting
botanical rarities in flowering plants may be applied with
equal force to shrubs, viz. that m order to produce a bril-
liant effect, a few well chosen species, often repeated, are
more effective than a great and ill-assorted mélange.

In the following list, the shrubs are divided into two
classes—No. 1 designating those of medium size, or low
growth, and No. 2, those which are of the largest size.

FLowerine In APRIL.

1. Daphne mezereum, the Pink Mezereum, D. M. album, the white
Mezereum. }
Shepherdia argentea, the Buffalo berry ; yellow.
Xanthorhiza apiifolia, the parsley-leaved Yellow-root ; brown.
Cydonia japonica, the Japan Quince ; searlet.
Cydonia japonica alba, the Japan Quince ; white.
Amelanchier Botryapium, the snowy Medlar.
Ribes aureum, the Missouri Currant; yellow.
- Coronilla Emerus, the Scorpion Senna ; yellow.

S Sie Se ees

Magnolia conspicua, the Chinese chandelier Magnolia ; white.

May.

Crategus oxycantha, the scarlet Hawthorm.
Crategus oxycantha, fl. pleno, the double white Hawthorn.
Chionanthus virginica, the white Fringe tree.

Chionanthus latifolius, the broad-leaved Fringe tree ; white.
Azalea, many fine varieties ; red, white, and yellow.
Calycanthus florida, the Sweet-scented-shrub ; brown.
Magnolia purpurea, the Chinese purple Magnolia.

Halesia tetraptera, the silyer Bell tree ; white.

Syringa vulgaris, the common white and red Lilacs.

FAs 82 RS" et et BO a ae

Syringa persica, the Persian Lilac: white and purple.

446

Sw wo eS Se eS et 2

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LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Syringa persica laciniata, the Persian cut-leaved Lilac ; purple. ~

Kerria or Corchorus japonica, the Japan Globe flower ; yellow.

Lonicera tartarica, the Tartarian upright Honeysuckles; red and
white.

Philadelphus coronarius, the common Syringo, and the double
Syringo ; white.

Spirea hypericifolia, the St. Stephen’s wreath ; white.

Spirea corymbosa, the cluster flowering Spirea ; white.

Ribes sanguineum, the scarlet flowering Currant.

Amygdalus pumila, pl., the double dwarf Almond ; pink.

Caragana Chamlagu, the Siberian Pea tree; yellow.

‘ Magnolia soulangeana, the Soulange Magnolia ; purple.

Paonia Moutan banksia,-and rosea, the Chinese tree Peonias;
purple.
Benthamia frugifera, the red berried Benthamia ; yellow.

JUNE.

Amorpha fruticosa, the Indigo Shrub; purple.

Colutea arborescens, the yellow Bladder-senna.

Colutea cruenta, the red Bladder-senna.

Cytisus capitatus, the cluster-flowered Cytisus ; yellow.
Stuartia virginica, the white Stuartia.

Cornus sanguinea, the bloody twig Dogwood ; white.
Hydrangea quercifolia, the oak-leaved Hydrangea ; white.
Philadelphus grandiflorus, the large flowering Syringo ; white.
Viburnum Opulus, the Snow-ball ; white.

Magnolia glauca, the swamp Magnolia; white.

Robinia hispida, the Rose-acacia

JuLY.

Spirea bella, the beautiful Spirea; red.
Sophora japonica, the Japan Sophora ; white.
Sophora japonica pendula, the weeping Sophora ; white.

_ Rhus Cotinus, the Venetian Fringe tree; yellow. (Brown tufts.)

Ligustrum vulgare, the common Privet ; white.

Cytisus Laburnum, the Laburnum ; yellow...

Cytisus l. quercifolia, the oaked-leaved Laburnum ; white.
Cytisus purpureus, the purple Laburnum.

Cytisus argenteus, the silvery Cytisus ; yellow.

Cytisus nigricans, the black rooted Cytisus; yellow.
Kolreuteria paniculata, tie Japan Kolreuteria ; yellow.

“a

EMBELLISHMENTS. 447

AveustT AND SEPTEMBER.

1. Clethra alnifolia, the alder-leaved Clethra ; white.

Symphoria racemosa, the Snowberry ; (in fruit) white.

2. Hibiscus syriacus, the double purple, double white, double striped,
double blue, and variegated leaved Altheas.

1. Spirea tomentosa, the tomentose Spirea ; red.

Magnolia glauba thompsoniana, the late flowering Magnolia ;

white.

Baccharis halimifolia, the Groundsel tree ; white tufts.

Euonymus europeus, the European Strawberry tree (in fruit), red.

2. Euonymus europeus alba, the European Strawberry tree ; the fruit
white.

—
.

2. Euonymus latifolius, the broad-leaved Strawberry tree ; red.
1. Daphne mezereum autumnalis, the autumnal Mezereum.

Besides the above, there are a great number of charming
varieties of hardy roses, some of which may be grown in
the common way on their own roots, and others grafted on
stocks, two, three, or four feet high, as standards or tree-
roses. The effect of the latter, if such varieties as George
the Fourth, La Cerisette, Pallagi, or any of the new hybrid
roses are grown as standards, is wonderfully brilliant when
they are in full bloom. Perhaps the situation where they
are displayed to the greatest advantage is, in the centre of
small round, oval, or square beds in the flower-garden,
where the remainder of the plants composing the bed are
of dwarfish growth, so as not to hide the stem and head of
the tree-roses.

There are, unfortunately, but few evergreen shrubs that
will endure the protracted cold of the winters of the north-
ern states. The fine Hollies, Portugal Laurels, Laurusti-
nuses, etc., which are the glory of English gardens in
autumn and winter, are not hardy enough to endure the
depressed temperature of ten degrees below zero. South
of Philadelphia, these beautiful exotic evergreens may be

ai
148 _. LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

acclimated with good success, and will add greatly to the
interest of the shrubbery and grounds in winter.

Besides the Balsam firs and the Spruce firs, the Arbor
Vite, and other evergreen trees which we have described
in the previous pages of this volume, the following hardy
species of evergreen shrubs may be introduced with

advantage in the pleasure-ground groups, viz :—

Rhododendron maximum, the American rose bay or big Laurel ; white
and pink, several varieties (in shaded places).

Kalmia latifolia, the common Laurel ; several colors.

Juniperus suecia, the Swedish Juniper.

Juniperus communis, the Irish Juniper.

Buxus arborescens, the common Tree-box, the Gold striped Tree-box,
and the Silver striped Tree-box.

Ilex opaca, the American Holly.

Crategus pyracantha, the Evergreen Thorn.

Mahonia aquifolium, the Holly leaved Berberry.

The Conservatory or the Green-House is an elegant and
delightful appendage to the villa or mansion, when there is
a taste for plants among the different members of a family.
Those who have not enjoyed it, can hardly imagine the
pleasure afforded by a well-chosen collection of exotic
plants, which, amid the genial warmth of an artificial
climate, continue to put forth their lovely blossoms, and
exhale their delicious perfumes, when all out-of-door nature
is chill and desolate. The many hours of pleasant and
healthy exercise and recreation afforded to the ladies of a
family, where they take an interest themselves in the
growth and vigor of the plants, are certainly no trifling
considerations where the country residence is the place of
habitation throughout the whole year. Often during the
inclemency of our winter and spring months, there are

days when either the excessive cold, or the disagreeable
oS

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EMBELLISHMENTS. 449

state of the weather, prevents in a great measure many
persons, and especially females, from taking exercise in
the open air. To such, the conservatory would be an
almost endless source of enjoyment and amusement; and
if they are true amateurs, of active exertion also. The
constant changes which daily growth and development
bring about in vegetable forms, the interest we feel in the
opening of a favorite cluster of buds, or the progress of the
thrifty and luxuriant shoots of a rare plant, are such as
serve most effectually to prevent an occupation of this
nature from ever becoming monotonous or ennuyant.

The difference between the green-house and conserva-
tory is, that in the former, the plants are all kept in pots
and arranged on stages, both to meet the eye agreeably,
and for more convenient growth ; while in the conservatory,
the plants are grown in a bed or border of soil precisely as
in the open air.

When either of these plant habitations is to be attached
to the house, the preference is greatly in favor of the
conservatory. The plants being allowed more room, have
richer and more luxuriant foliage, and grow and flower
in a manner altogether superior to those in pots. The
allusion to nature is also more complete in the case of
plants growing in the ground; and from the objects all
being on the same level, and easily accessible, they are
with more facility kept in that perfect nicety and order
which an elegant plant-house should always exhibit.

On the other hand, the green-house will contain by far
the largest number of plants, and the same may be more
easily changed or renewed at any time; so that for a
particular taste, as that of a botanical amateur, who wishes

to grow a great number of species in a small space, the
29

450 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

green-house will be found preferable. Whenever either
the conservatory or green-house is of moderate size, and
intended solely fer private recreation, we would in every
case, when such a thing is not impossible, have it attached
to the house; communicating by a glass door with the
drawing-room, or one of the living rooms. Nothing can
be more gratifying than a vista in winter through a glass
door down the walk of a conservatory, bordered and
overhung with the fine forms of tropical vegetation,
golden oranges glowing through the dark green foliage,
and gay corollas lighting up the branches of Camellias,
and other floral favorites. Let us add the exulting song of
a few Canaries, and the enchantment is complete. How
much more refined and elevated is the taste which prefers
such accessories to a dwelling, rather than costly furniture,
or an extravagant display of plate!

The best and most economical form for a conservatory
is a parallelogram—the deviation from a square being
greater or less according to circumstances. When it is
joined to the dwelling by one of its sides (in the case of
the parallelogram form), the roof need only slope in one
way, that is from the house. When one of the ends of the
conservatory joins the dwelling, the roof should slope both
ways from the centre. The advantage of the junction in
the former case, is, that less outer surface of the conser-
vatory being exposed to the cold, viz. only a side and two
ends, less fuel will be required ; the advantage in the latter
case is, that the main walk leading down the conserva-
tory will be exactly in the line of the vista from the
drawing-room of the dwelling.

It is, we hope, almost unnecessary to state, that the roof
of a conservatory, or indeed any other house where plants

EMBELLISHMENTS. 451

are to be well-grown, must be glazed. Opake roofs
prevent the admission of perpendicular light, without
which the stems of vegetation are drawn up weak and
feeble, and are attracted in an unsightly manner towards
the glass in front. When the conservatory joins the house
by one of its ends, and extends out from the building to a
considerable length, the effect will be mueh more elegant ;
and the plants will thrive more perfectly, when it is glazed
on all of the three sides, so as to admit light in every
direction.

The best aspect for a conservatory is directly south;
southeast and southwest are scarcely inferior. Even east
and west exposures will do very well, where there is plenty
of glass toe admit light; for though our winters are cold,
yet there is a great abundance of sun, and bright clear
atmosphere, both far more beneficial to plants than the
moist, foggy vapor of an English winter, which, though
mild, is comparatively sunless. When the conservatory
adjoins and leoks into the flower-garden, the effect will be
appropriate and pleasing.

Some few hints respecting the construction of a con-
servatory may not be unacceptable to some of our readers.
In the first place, the roof should have a_sufficient slope to
carry off the rain rapidly, to prevent leakage; from 40 to
45 degrees is found to be the best inclination in our
climate. The roof should by no means be glazed with
large panes, because small ones -have much greater
strength, which is requisite to withstand the heavy
weight of snow that often falls during winter, as well as
to resist breakage -by hail storms in summer. Four or

-eight inches by six, is the best size for roof-glass, and with

this size the lap of the panes need not be greater than one-

jee:

452 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

eighth of an inch, while it would require to be one-fourth
of an inch, were the panes of the usual size. On the front
and sides, the sashes may be handsome, and filled in with
the best glass; even plate glass has been used in many _
cases to our knowledge here.

In the second place, some thorough provision must
be made for warming the cofiservatory ; and it is by far the
best mode to have the apparatus for this purpose entirely
independent of the dwelling house; that is (though the
furnace may be in the basement), the flues and fire should
be intended to heat the conservatory alone; for although
a conservatory may, if small, be heated by the same fire
which heats the kitchen or one of the ving rooms, it is a
much less efficient mode of attaining this object, and
renders the conservatory more or less lable at all times
to be too hot or too cold.

The common square flue, the sides built of bricks, and
the top and bottom of, tiles manufactured for that purpose,
is one of the oldest, most simple, and least expensive
methods of heating in use. Latterly, its place has been
supplied by hot water circulated in large tubes of three
or four inches in diameter from an open boiler, and by
Perkins’s mode as it is called, which employs small pipes
of an inch in diameter, hermetically sealed. Economy
of fuel and in the time requisite in attendance, are the
chief merits of the hot water systems, which, however,
have the great additional advantage of affording a more
moist and genial temperature.

In a green-house, the flues, or hot water pipes, may be
concealed under the stage. In conservatories they should
by all means be placed out of sight also. To effect this,
they are generally conducted into a narrow, hollow

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EMBELLISHMENTS. 453

chamber, under the walk, which has perforated sides or a

grated top, to permit the escape of heated air.*

[Fig. 79. Villa at Brooklyn, N. Y., with the Conservatory attached.]

One of the most beautiful conservatories attached to
the dwelling, to which we can refer our readers, for an
example, is one built by J. W. Perry, Esq., Brooklyn, near
New York (Fig. 79), forming the left wing of this elegant
villa. Among the most magnificent detached conserva-
tories are those of J. P. Cushing, Esq., at his elegant seat,
Belmont Place, Watertown, near Boston; and that at
Montgomery Place, the seat of Mrs. Edward Livingston,
on the Hudson, Fig. 80.

A conservatory is frequently made an addition to a
rectangular Grecian villa, as one of its wings—the other
being a living or bed-room. The more varied and
irregular outline of Gothic buildings enables them to
receive an appendage of this nature with more facility

in almost any direction, where the aspect is suitable.

* The circulation of warm air is greatly accelerated when an opening
through the outer air is permitted to enter the hot air passage, thus becoming
heated and passing into the conservatory.

454 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Whatever be the style of the architecture of the house,
that of the conservatory should in every case conform
to it, and evince a degree of enrichment according with
that of the main building.

Though a conservatory is often made an expensive
luxury, attached only to the better class of residences, there
is no reason why cottages of more humble character
should not have the same source of enjoyment on a more
moderate scale. A small green-house, or plant cabinet, as
it is sometimes called, eight or ten feet square, communi-
cating with the parlor, and constructed in a simple style,
may be erected and kept up in such a manner, as to be a
source of much pleasure, for a comparatively trifling sum ;
and we hope soon to see in this country, where the com-
forts of life are more equally distributed than in any other,
the taste for enjoyments of this kind extending itself with
the means for realizing them, into every portion of the
northern and middle States.

Open and covered seats, of various descriptions, are
among the most convenient and useful decorations for the
pleasure-grounds of a country residence. Situated in por-
tions of the lawn or park, somewhat distant from the
house, they offer an agreeable place for rest or repose. If
there are certain points from which are obtained agreeable
prospects or extensive views of the surrounding country, a
seat, by designating those points, and by affording us a
convenient mode of enjoying them, has a double recom-
mendation to our minds.

Open and covered. seats are of two distinct kinds; one
architectural, or formed after artist-like designs, of stone
or wood, in Grecian, Gothic, or other forms ; which may,
if they are intended to produce an elegant effect, have

eo Sahl Ss la cami

EMBELLISHMENTS. 455

vases on pedestals as accompaniments ; the other, rustic,
as they are called, which are formed out of trunks and
branches of trees, roots, ete., in their natural forms.

There are particular sites where each of these kinds of
seats, or structures, is, in good taste, alone admissible. In
the proximity of elegant and decorated buildings where all
around has a polished air, it would evidently be doing
violence to our feelings and sense of propriety to admit
many rustic seats and structures of any kind; but archi-
tectural decorations and architectural seats are there
correctly introduced. For the same reason, also, as we
have already suggested, that the sculptured forms of vases,
etc., would be out of keeping in scenes where nature is
predominant (as the distant wooded parts or walks of a
residence), architectural, or, in other words, highly _arti-
ficial seats, would not be in character: but rustic seats
and structures, which, from the nature of the materials
employed and the simple manner of their construction,
appear but one remove from natural forms, are felt at once
to be in unison with the surrounding objects. Again, the
mural and highly artistical vase and statue, most properly
accompany the beautiful landscape. garden ; while rustic
baskets, or vases, are the most fitting decorations of the
Picturesque Landscape Garden.

The simplest variety of covered architectural seat is the
latticed arbor for vines of various descriptions, with the
seat underneath the canopy of foliage; this may with
more propriety be introduced in various parts of the
grounds than any other of its class, as the luxuriance and
natural gracefulness of the foliage which covers the arbor,
in a great measure destroys or overpowers the expression
of its original form. Lattice arbors, however, neatly

456 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

formed of rough poles and posts, are much more pictu-

resque and suitable for wilder portions of the scenery.
The temple and the pavilion are highly

finished forms of covered seats, which are

occasionally introduced in splendid places,

——_—__ —

[Fig. 81.]

where classic architecture prevails. There is
a circular pavilion of this kind at the termination of one
of the walks at Mr. Langdon’s residence, Hyde Park.
Fig. 81.

We consider rustic seats and structures as likely to be
much preferred in the villa and cottage residences of the
country. They have the merit of being tasteful and pic-
turesque in their appearance, and are easily constructed
by the amateur, at comparatively little or no expense.
There is scarcely a prettier or more

pleasant object for the termination of a

[Fig. 82] ra long walk in the pleasure-grounds or park,
than a neatly thatched structure of rustic work, with its
seat for repose, and a view of the landscape beyond. On
finding such an object, we are never tempted to think that
there has been a lavish expenditure to serve a trifling
purpose, but are gratified to see the exercise of taste and
ingenuity, which completely answers the end in view.

Figure 82 is an example of a simple rustic
seat formed of the crooked and curved branches

of the oak, elm, or any other of our forest trees
Fig. 83 is a seat of the same character, made
at the foot of a tree, whose overhanging branches afford a
fine shade.

Figure 84 is a covered seat or rustic arbor, with a
thatched roof of straw. Twelve posts are set securely in
the ground, which make the frame of this structure, the

EMBELLISHMENTS. 457

openings between being filled in with branches (about
three inches in diameter) of different trees—the more
irregular the better, so that the perpendicular surface of
the exterior and interior is kept nearly equal. In lieu of
thatch, the roof may be first tightly boarded, and then a
covering of bark or the slabs of trees with the bark on,
overlaid and nailed on. The figure represents the struc-
ture as formed round a tree. For the sake of variety this
might be omitted, the roof formed of an open lattice work
of branches like the sides, and the whole covered by a
grape, bignonia, or some other vine or creeper of luxuriant
growth. The seats are in the interior.

Figure 85 represents a covered seat of another kind.
The central structure, which is circular, is
intended for a collection of minerals, shells,

or any other curious objects for which an

= = on amateur might have a penchant. Geo-

(Fig. 8.) logical or mineralogical specimens of the
adjacent neighborhood, would be very proper for such a
cabinet. The seat surrounds it on the outside, over which

is a thatched roof or veranda, supported on rustic pillars

¥ formed of the trunks of saplings, with the bark attached.

458 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Many of the English country places abound with
admirable specimens of rustic work in their parks and
pleasure-grounds. White Knight’s, in particular, a resi-
dence of the Duke of Marlborough, has a number of
beautiful structures of this kind. Figure 86 is a view of a

Ail

[Fig. 86. Rustic Covered Seat.]

round seat with thatched roof, in that demesne. Three or
four rustic pillars support the architrave, and the whole of
the exterior and interior (being first formed of frame-
work) is covered with straight branches of the maple and
larch. The seat on the interior looks upon a fine prospect ;
and the seat on the back of the exterior fronts the park.
There is no limit to the variety of forms and patterns in
which these rustic seats, arbors, summer-houses, etc., can
be constructed by an artist of some fancy and ingenuity.
After the frame-work of the structure is formed of posts
and rough boards, if small straight rods about an inch in
diameter, of hazel, white birch, maple, etc., are selected in
sufficient quantity, they may be nailed on in squares,
diamonds, medallions, or other patterns, and have the effect _
of a mosaic of wood. ‘
Among the curious results of this fancy for rustic work,

we may mention the moss-house—erected in several places:

EMBELLISHMENTS. 459

abroad. The skeleton or frame-work of the arbor or house
is formed as we have just stated; over this small rods half
an inch in diameter are nailed, about an inch from centre
to centre ; after the whole surface is covered with this sort
of rustic lathing, a quantity of the softer wood-moss of
different colors is collected; and taking small parcels in
the hand at a time, the tops being evenly arranged, the
bottoms or roots are crowded closely between the rods with
a small wooden wedge. When this is’ done with some
little skill, the tufted ends spread out and cover the rods
entirely, showing a smooth surface of mosses of different
colors, which has. an effect not unlike that of a thick
Brussels carpet.

The mosses retain their color for a great length of time,
and when properly rammed in with the wedge, they cannot
be pulled out again without breaking their tops. The
prettiest example which we have seen of a handsome
moss-house in this country, is at the residence of Wm. H.
Aspinwall, Esq., on Staten Island.

A prospect tower is a most desirable and pleasant
structure in certain residences. Where the view is com-
paratively limited from the grounds, on account of their
surface being level, or nearly so, it ofter’ happens that the
spectator, by being raised some twenty-five or thirty feet
above the surface, finds himself in a totally different
position, whence a charming coup d’@il or bird’s-eye view
of the surrounding country is obtained.

Those of our readers who may have visited the de-
lightful garden and grounds of M. Parmentier, near
Brooklyn, some half.a dozen years since, during the life-
time of that amiable and zealous amateur of horticulture,
will readily remember the rustic prospect-arbor, or tower,

460 : LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

Fig. 87, which was situated at the extre-
mity of his place. It was one of the
first pieces of rustic work of any size,
and displaying any ingenuity, that we
eer remember to have seen here; and from

its summit, though the garden walks afforded no prospect,
a beautiful reach of the neighborhood for many miles was
enjoyed.

Figure 88 is a design for a rustic prospect tower of three
stories in height, with a double thatched

roof. Itis formed of rustic pillars or columns,

YS; which are well fixed in the ground, and which
“YRS are filled in with a fanciful lattice of rustic
‘3 branches. A spiral staircase winds round
~ the interior of the platform of the second
and upper stories, where there are seats under the open
thatched roof.

On a ferme ornée, where the proprietor desires to give a
picturesque appearance to the different appendages of the
place, rustic work offers an easy and convenient method
of attaining this end. The dairy is sometimes made a
detached building, and in this country it may be built of
logs in a tasteful manner with a thatched roof; the interior
being studded, lathed, and plastered in the usual way. Or
the ice-house, which generally shows but a rough gable and
ridge roof rising out of the ground, might be covered with
a neat structure in rustic work, overgrown with vines,
which would give it a pleasing or picturesque air, instead
of leaving it, as at present, an unsightly object which we
are anxious to conceal.

A species of useful decoration, which is perhaps more
naturally suggested than any other, is the bridge. Where

EMBELLISHMENTS. 461

a constant stream, of greater or less size, runs through the
grounds, and divides the banks on opposite sides, a bridge
of some description, if it is only a narrow plank over a
rivulet, is highly necessary. In pieces of artificial water
that are irregular in outline, a narrow strait is often pur-
posely made, with the view of introducing a bridge for
effect.

When the stream is large and bold, a handsome archi-
tectural bridge of stone or timber is by far the most suitable ;
especially if the stream is near the house, or if it is crossed
on the Approach road to the mansion ; because a character
of permanence and solidity is requisite in such cases. But
when it is only a winding rivulet or crystal brook, which
meanders along beneath the- shadow of tufts of clustering

foliage of the pleasure-ground or park, a rustic bridge may

be brought in with the happiest effect.
: Fig. 89 is a rustic bridge erected under
~~ our direction. The foundation is made
(Fig. 89.) by laying down a few large square
stones beneath the surface on both sides of the stream to
be spanned; upon these are, stretched two round posts or
sleepers with the bark on, about eight or ten inches in
diameter. The rustic hand-rail is framed into these two
sleepers. The floor of the bridge is made by laying down
small posts of equal size, about four or six inches in diame-
ter, crosswise upon the sleepers, and nailing them down
securely. The bark is allowed to remain on in every
piece of wood employed in the construction of this little
bridge; and when the wood is cut at the proper season
(durable kinds being. chosen), such a bridge, well made,
will remain in excellent order for many years.
Rockwork is another kind of decoration sometimes intro-

462 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

duced in particular portions of the scenery of a residence,
Fig. 90. When well executed, that is, so as to have a
natural and harmonious expression, the effect is highly
pleasing. We have seen, however, in places where a high

[Fig. 90. Rockwork.]

keeping and good taste otherwise prevailed, such a barba-
rous mélange, or confused pile of stones mingled with soil,
and planted over with dwarfish plants dignified with the
name of rockwork, that we have been led to believe that it is
much better to attempt nothing of the kind, unless there is
a suitable place for its display, and at the same time, the
person attempting it is sufficiently an artist, imbued with
the spirit of nature in her various compositions and com-
binations, to be able to produce something higher than a
caricature of her works.

The object of rockwork is to produce in scenery or por-
tions of a scene, naturally in a great measure destitute
of groups of rocks and their accompanying drapery of
plants and foliage, something of the picturesque effect which
such natural assemblages confer. To succeed in this, it is

evident that we must not heap up little hillocks of mould

EMBELLISHMENTS. 463

and smooth stones, in the midst of an open lawn, or the
centre of a flower-garden. _ But if we can make choice of
a situation where a rocky bank or knoll already partially
exists, or would be in keeping with the form of the ground
and the character of the scene, then we may introduce
such accompaniments with the best possible hope of
success.

It often happens in a place of considerable extent, that
somewhere in conducting the walks through the grounds,
Wwe meet with a ridge with a small rocky face, or perhaps
with a large rugged single rock, or a bank where rocky
summits just protrude themselves through the surface. The
common feeling against such uncouth objects, would direct
them to be cleared away at once out of sight. But let us
take the case of the large rugged rock, and commence our
picturesque operations upon it. We will begin by collect-
ing from some rocky hill or valley in the neighborhood of
the estate, a sufficient quantity of rugged rocks, in size
from a few pounds to half a ton or more, if necessary, pre-
ferring always such as are already coated with mosses and
lichens. These we will assemble around the base of a large
rock, in an irregular somewhat pyramidal group, bedding
them sometimes partially, sometimes almost entirely in soil
heaped in irregular piles around the rock. The rocks
must be arranged in a natural manner, avoiding all regu-
larity and appearance of formal art, but placing them
sometimes in groups of half a dozen together, overhanging
each other, and sometimes half bedded in the soil, and a
little distance apart. There are no rules to be given for
such operations, but the study of natural groups, of a
character similar to that which we wish to produce, will
afford sufficient hints if the artist is

464 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

« Prodigue de génie,”
and has a perception of the natural beauty which he
desires to imitate.

The rockwork once formed, choice trailing, creeping, and
alpine plants, such as delight naturally in similar situations,
may he planted in the soil which fills the interstices between
the rocks: when these grow to fill their proper places,
partly concealing and adorning the rocks with their neat
green foliage and pretty blossoms, the effect of the whole,
if properly done, will be like some exquisite portion of a
rocky bank in wild scenery, and will be found to give an
air at once striking and picturesque to the little scene
where it is situated.

In small places where the grounds are extremely limited,
and the owner wishes to form a rockwork for the growth
of alpine and other similar plants, if there are no natural
indications of a rocky surface, a rockwork may sometimes
be introduced without violating good taste by preparing
natural indications artificially, if we may use such a term.
If a few of the rocks to be employed in the rockwork are
sunk half or three-fourths their depth in the soil near the
site of the proposed rockwork, so as to have the ap-
pearance of a rocky ridge just cropping out, as the
geologists say, then the rockwork will, tothe eye of a
spectator, seem to be connected with, and growing out of
this rocky spur or ridge below: or, in other words, there
will be an obvious reason for its being situated there,
instead of its presenting a wholly artificial appearance.

In a previous page, when treating of the banks of pieces
of water formed by art, we endeavored to show how the
natural appearance of such banks would be improved by

the judicious introduction of rocks partially imbedded into

EMBELLISHMENTS. 465

and holding them up. Such situations, in the case of a
small lake or pond, or a brook, are admirable sites for rock-
work. Where the materials of a suitable kind are
abundant, and tasteful ingenuity is not wanting, surprising
effects may be produced in a small space. Caves and
grottoes, where ferns and mosses would thrive admirably
with the gentle drip from the roof, might be made of the
overarching rocks arranged so as to appear like small
natural‘caverns. Let the exterior be partially planted with
low shrubs and climbing plants, as the wild Clematis, and
the effect of such bits of landscape could not but be
agreeable in secluded portions of the grounds.

In many parts of the country, the secondary blue
limestone abounds, which, in the small masses found loose
in the woods, covered with mosses and ferns, affords the
very finest material for artificial rockwork.*

After all, much the safest way is never to introduce
rockwork of any description, unless we feel certain that it
will have a good effect. When a place is naturally
picturesque, and abounds here and there with rocky banks,
etc., little should be done but to heighten and aid the
expressions of these, if they are wanting in spirit, by
adding something more ; or softening and giving elegance
to the expression, if too wild, by planting the same with

* Our readers may see an engraving and description of a superb extravaganza
in rockwork in a late number of Loudon’s Gardener's Magazine. Lady
Broughton, of Hoole House, Chester, England, has succeeded in forming,
round a natural valley, an imitation of the hills, glaciers, and scenery of a
passage in Switzerland. The whole is done in rockwork, the snow-covered
summits being represented in white spar. The appropriate plants, trees, and
shrubs on a small scale, are introduced, and the illusion, to a spectator standing
in the valley surrounded by these glaciers, is said to be wonderfully striking
and complete.

466 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

beautiful shrubs and climbers. On a tame sandy level,
where rocks of any kind are unknown, their introduction
in rockworks, nine times in ten, is more likely to give rise
to emotions of the ridiculous, than those of the sublime or
picturesque.

Fountains are highly elegant garden decorations, rarely
seen in this country; which is owing, not so much, we

apprehend, to any great cost incurred in putti

or any want of appreciation of their s
enlivening effect in garden scenery, as to the fac tl
are few artisans here, as abroad, whose business it is to
construct and fit up architectural, and other jets deau.
The first requisite, where a fountain is a desideratum, is
a constant supply of water, either from a natural source
or an artificial reservoir, some distance higher than the
level of the surface whence the jet or fountain is to rise.

s°

[Fig. 91. Design fur a Fountain.]

Where there is a pond, or other body of water, on a higher
level than the proposed fountain, it is only necessary to lay
pipes under the surface to conduct the supply of water to

EMBELLISHMENTS. 467

the required spot ; but where there is no such head of water,
the latter must be provided from a reservoir ‘artificially
prepared, and kept constantly full.

There are two very simple and cheap modes of effecting
this, which we shall lay before our readers, and one or the
other of which may be adopted in almost every locality.
The first is to provide a large flat cistern of sufficient size,
which is to be placed under the roof in the upper story of
one of the outbuildings, the carriage-house for example,
and receive its supplies from the water collected on the
roof of the building; the amount of water collected in this
way from a roof of mederate size being much more than
is generally supposed. The second is to sink a well of
capacious size (where such is not already at command)

in some part of the grounds where it will not be con-

spicuous, and over it to erect.a small tower, the top of
which shall contain a cistern and a small horizontal wind-
mill ; which being kept in motion by the wind more or less
almost every day in summer, will raise a sufficient quantity
of water to keep the reservoir supplied from the well
below. In either of these cases, it is only necessary to
carry leaden pipes from the cistern (under the surface,
below the reach of frost) to the place where the jet is to
issue ; the supply in both these cases will, if properly
arranged, be more than enough for the consumption of the
fountain during the hours when it will be necessary for it
to play, viz. from sunrise to evening.

The steam-engine is often employed to force up water
for the supply of fountains in many of the large public and
royal gardens; but there are few cases in this country
where private expenditures of this kind would be justifiable.

But where a small stream, or even the overflow of a

468 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

perpetual spring, can be commanded, the Hydraulic Ram
is the most perfect as well as the simplest and cheapest
of all modes of raising water. A supply pipe of an inch
in diameter is in many cases sufficient to work the Ram
and force water to a great distance; and where sufficient
to fill a “driving pipe’ of two inches diameter can be
commanded, a large reservoir may be kept constantly
filled. As the Hydraulic Ram is now for sale in all our
cities we need not explain its action.

“In conducting the water fron: the cistern or reservoir
to the jet or fountain, the following particulars require to
be attended to: In the first place, all the pipes must be
laid sufficiently deep in the earth, or otherwise placed and
protected so as to prevent the possibility of their being
reached by frost; next, as a general rule, the diameter of
the orifice from which the jet of water proceeds, tech-
nically called the bore of the quill, ought to be four times
less than the bore of the conduit pipe; that is, the quill
and the pipe ought to be in a quadruple proportion to
each other. There are several sorts of quills or spouts,
which throw the water up or down, into a variety of
forms: such as fans, parasols, sheaves, showers, mushrooms,
inverted bells, etc. The larger the conduit pipes are, the
more freely will the jets display their different forms; and
the fewer the holes in the quill or jet (for sometimes this is
pierced like the rose of a watering pot) the greater
certainty there will be of the form continuing the same;
because the risk of any of the holes choking up will be
less. The diameter of a conduit pipe ought in no case
to be less than one inch; but for jets of very large size,
the diameter ought to be two inches. Where the conduit
pipes are of great length, say upwards of 1000 feet, it is

pels Sees

EMBELLISHMENTS. 469

found advantageous to begin, at the reservoir or cistern,
with pipes of a diameter somewhat greater than those
which deliver the water to the quills, because the water, in
a pipe of uniform diameter of so great a length, is found
to lose much of its strength, and become what is tech-
nically called sleepy: while the different sizes quicken it,
and redouble its force. For example, in a conduit pipe of
1800 feet in length, the first six hundred feet may be laid
with pipes of eight inches in diameter, the next 600 feet
with pipes ef six inches in diameter, and the last 600 feet
with pipes of four inches in diameter. In conduits not
exceeding 900 feet, the same diameter may be continued
throughout. When several jets are to play in several
fountains, or in the same, it is net necessary to lay a fresh
pipe from each jet to the reservoir; a main of sufficient
size, with branch pipes to each jet, being all that is required.
Where the conduit pipe enters the reservoir or cistern, it
ought to be of increased diameter, and the grating placed
over it to keep out leaves and other matters which might
choke it up, ought to be semi-globular or conical; so that
the area of the number of holes in it may exceed the
area of the orifice of the conduit pipe. The object is to
prevent any diminution of pressure from the body of
water in the cistern, and to facilitate the flow of the
water. Where the conduit pipe joins the fountain, there,
of course, ought to be a cock for turning the water off and
on; and particular care must be taken that as much water
may pass through the oval hole of this cock as passes
through the circular hole of the pipe. In conduit pipes, all
elbows, bendings, and right angles should be avoided as
much as possible, since they diminish the force of the
water. In very long conduit pipes, air-holes formed by

470 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

soldering on upright pieces of pipe, terminating in inverted
valves or suckers, should be made at convenient distances,
and protected by shafts built of stone or brick, and covered
with movable gratings, in order to let out the air. Where
pipes ascend and descend on very irregular surfaces,
the strain on the lowest parts of the pipe is always the
greatest; unless care is taken to relieve this by the
judicious disposition of cocks and air-holes. Without this
precaution, pipes conducted over irregular surfaces will
not last nearly so long as those conducted over a level.” —
Encycl. of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture,
page 989.

Where the reservoir is but a short distance, as from a
dozen to fifty yards, all that is necessary is to lay the con-
duit pipes on a regular uniform slope, to secure a steady
uninterrupted flow of water. Owing to the friction in the
pipes, and pressure of the atmosphere, the water in the
fountain will of course, in no case, rise quite as high as the
level of the water in the reservoir; but it will nearly as
high. For example, if the reservoir is ten feet four inches
high, the water in the jet will only rise ten feet, and in like
proportion for the different heights. The following table*

Height of the Diameter of the Diameters of the Height the water |

| Reservoir. | Conduit pipes. | Orifices, will rise to.

ne: 1 4 0. 6 ae

[ 10 4 ; = 9) 0 10 0
15 9 Qi 0 6 Oe 1s 0
21 - 4 Qh 0 | 64 0 | 20 0
33 0 3 0 7 0 30 0
45 4 43 0 7 8 | 40 0
58 4 5 a) 8 10 50 0
72 0 53 0 10 12 60 0
86 4 6 0 12 14 70 0

100 pe 0 12 15 80 0

* Switzers Introduction to a General System of Hydrostaties.

EMBELLISHMENTS. 471

shows with a given height of reservoirs and diameter of
conduit pipes and orifices, the height to which the water
will rise in the fountain.

A simple jet (Fig. 92) issuing from a circular basin of
water, or a cluster of perpendicular jets (candelabra jets),
§ is at once the simplest and most pleasing of
fountains. Such are almost the only kinds
of fountains which can be introduced with

propriety in simple scenes where the pre-

(Fig, 2)
dominant objects are sylvan, not architectural.

Weeping, or Tazza Fountains, as they are called, are
yer and highly isis objects, which require only a

REET ee TESS

» very moderate supply of water com-
iH pared with that demanded by a

ie constant and powerful jet. The

it i iit i ii 1 |
f " ie ' Het conduit pipe rises through and fills

(Fig. 93. a } the vase, which is so formed as to

overflow round its entire margin. Figure 93 represents a
beautiful Grecian vase for tazza fountains. The ordinary
jet and the tazza fountain may be combined in one, when
the supply of water is sufficient, by carrying the conduit
pipe to the level of the top of the vase, from which the
water rises perpendicularly, then falls back into the vase
and overflows as before.

We might enumerate and figure a great many other
designs for fountains; but the connoisseur will receive
more ample information on this head than we are able to
afford, from the numerous F rench works devoted to this
branch of Rural Embellishment.

A species of rustic fountain which has a good effect, is
made by introducing the conduit pipe or pipes among the
groups of reckwork alluded to, from whence (the orifice of

472 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

the pipe being concealed or disguised) the water issues
among the rocks either in the form of a cascade, a weep-
ing fountain, or a perpendicular jet. A little basin of
water is formed at the foot or in the midst of the rockwork ;
and the cool moist atmosphere afforded by the trickling
streams, would offer a most congenial site for aquatic
plants, ferns, and mosses.

Fountains of a highly artificial character are happily
situated only when they are placed in the neighborhood of
buildings and architectural forms. When only a single
fountain can be maintained in a residence, the centre of
the flower-garden, or the neighborhood of the piazza or
terrace-walk, is, we think, much the most appropriate
situation for it. There the liquid element, dancing and
sparkling in the sunshine, is an agreeable feature in the
scene, as viewed from the windows of the rooms; and the
falling watery spray diffusing coolness around is no less
delightful in the surrounding stillness of a summer evening.

After all that we have said respecting architectural and
_Tustic decorations of the grounds, we must admit that it
requires a great deal of good taste and judgment, to
introduce and distribute them so as to be in geod keeping
with the scenery of country residences. A country resi-
dence, where the house with a few tasteftl groups of
flowers and shrubs, and a pretty lawn, with clusters and
groups of luxuriant trees, are all in high keeping and
evincing high order, is far more beautiful and pleasing
than the same place, or even one of much larger extent,
where a profusion of statues, vases, and fountains, or
rockwork and rustic seats, are distributed throughout the

garden and grounds, while the latter, in themselves, show

‘a a

EMBELLISHMENTS. 473

slovenly keeping, and a crude and meagre knowledge of
design in Landscape Gardening.

Unity of expression is the maxim and guide in this
department of the art, as in every other. Decorations can
never be introduced with good effect, when they are at
variance with the character of surrounding objects. A
beautiful and highly architectural villa may, with the
greatest propriety, receive the decorative accompaniments
of elegant vases, sundials, or statues, should the proprietor
choose to display his wealth and taste in this manner ; but
these decorations would be totally misapplied in the case
of a plain square edifice, evincing no architectural style in
itself. 3

In addition to this, there is great danger that a mere
lover of fine vases may run into the error of assembling
these objects indiscriminately in different parts of his
grounds, where they have really no place, but interfere
with the quiet character of surrounding nature. He may
overload the grounds with an unmeaning distribution of
sculpturesque or artificial forms, instead of working up
those parts where art predominates in such a manner, by
means of appropriate decorations, as to heighten by con-
trast the beauty of the whole adjacent landscape.

With regard to pavilions, summer-houses, rustic seats,
and garden edifices of like character, they should, if
possible, in all cases be introduced where they are
manifestly appropriate or in harmony with the scene.
Thus a grotto should not be formed in the side of an
open bank, but in a, deep shadowy recess; a classic
temple or pavilion may crown a beautiful and prominent
knoll, and a rustic covered seat may occupy a secluded,

474 LANDSCAPE GARDENING.

quiet portion of the grounds, where undisturbed meditation
may be enjoyed. As our favorite Delille says :

« Sachez ce qui convient ou nuit au caracteére.
Un réduit éearté, dans un lieu solitaire,
Peint mieux la solitude encore et l’abandon.
Montrez-vous done fidéle 4 chaque expression ;
N’allez pas au grand jour offrir un ermitage :
Ne cachez point un temple au fond d’un bois sauvage.”
Les JaRpDINs.

Or if certain objects are unavoidably placed in situations
of inimical expression, the artist should labor to alter the
character of the locality. How much this can be done by
the proper choice of trees and shrubs, and the proper
arrangement of plantations, those who have seen the
difference in aspect of certain favorite localities of wild
nature, as covered with wood, or as denuded by the axe,
can well judge. And we hope the amateur, who has
made himself familiar with the habits and _ peculiar
expressions of different trees, as pointed out in this work,
will not find himself at a loss to effect such changes, by

the aid of time, with ease and facility.

APPENDIX.

Notes on transplanting trees. Reasons for frequent failures in removing large trees.
Directions for performing this operation. Selection of subjects. Preparing trees for
removal. Transplanting evergreens.

TaeEre is no subject on which the professional horticulturist is more
frequently consulted in America, than transplanting trees. And, as it
is an essential branch of Landscape Gardening—indeed, perhaps, the
most important and necessary one to be practically understood in the
improvement or embellishment of new country residences—we shall
offer a few remarks here, with the hope of rendering it a more easy
and successful practice in the hands of amateurs.

Although there are great numbers of acres of beautiful woods and
groves, the natural growth of the soil, in most of the older states, yet
a considerable portion of our ordinary country seats are meagrely
clothed with trees, while many beautiful sites for residences have, in
past years, been so denuded that the nakedness of their appearance con-
stitutes a serious objection to them as places of residence. To be able,
therefore, to transplant, from natural copses, trees of ten or twenty
years’ growth, is so universally a desideratum, that great numbers of
experiments are made annually with this view; though few persons
succeed in obtaining what they desire, viz. the immediate effect of
wood ; partly from a want of knowledge of the nature of vegetable
physiology, and partly from malpractice in the operation of removal
itself.

When the admirably written “Planter’s Guide,” by Sir Henry

476 APPENDIX.

Steuart, made its appearance some ten years ago, not only describing
minutely the whole theory of transplanting nearly full grown trees, but —
placing before its readers a report of a committee of the Highland
Society of Edinburgh attesting the complete success of the practice,
as exemplified in the woods, copses, and groups, which, removed by
the transplanting machine, beautified with their verdure and luxuriance
the baronet’s own park, the whole matter of transplanting was appa-
rently cleared up, and numbers of individuals in this country, with san-
guine hopes of success, set about the removal of large forest trees.

Of the numerous trials made upon this method, with trees of extra
size, we have known but a very few instances of even tolerable success.
This is no doubt owing partly to the want of care and skill in the
practical part of the process, but mainly to the ungenial nature of our
climate.

The climate of Scotland during four-fifths of the year is, in some
respects, the exact opposite of that of the United States. An atmo-
sphere which, for full nine months of the twelve, is copiousiy charged
with fogs, mist, and dampness, may undoubtedly be considered as the
most favorable in the world for restoring the weakened or impaired
vital action of large transplanted trees. In this country, on the con-
trary, the dry atmosphere and constant evaporation under the brilliant
sun of our summers, are most important obstacles with which the
transplanter has to contend, and which render complete success so
much more difficult here than in Scotland. And we would therefore
rarely attempt in this country the extensive removal of trees larger than
twenty feet in height. When of the size of fifteen feet they are suf-
ficiently large to produce very considerable immediate effect, while they
are not so large as to be costly or very difficult to remove, or to suffer
greatly by the change of position, like older ones.

The great want of success in transplanting trees of moderate size
in this country arises, as we conceive, mainly from two causes; the
first, a want of skill in performing the operation, arising chiefly from
ignorance of the nature of the vital action of plants, in roots, branches,
ete., and the second, a bad or improper selection of subjects on which
the operation is to be performed. Either of these causes would ac-
count for bad success in removals; and where, as is frequently the

ag dat al

APPENDIX. 477

ease, both are combined, total failure can scarcely be a matter of sur-
prise to those really familiar with the matter.

An uninformed spectator, who should witness for the first time the
removal of a forest tree, as ordinarily performed by many persons,
would scarcely suppose that anything beyond mere physical slrengih
was required. Commencing as near the tree as possible, cutting off
many of the roots, with the very smallest degree of reluctance,
wrenching the remaining mass out of their bed as speedily and almost
as roughly as possible, the operator hastens to complete his destructive
process, by cutting off the best part of the head of the tree, to make
it correspond with the reduced state of the roots. Arrived at the hole
prepared for its reception, his replanting consists in shovelling in, while
the tree is held upright, the surrounding soil, paying little or no regard
to filling up all the small interstices among the roots ; and finally, after
treading the earth as hard as possible, completing the whole by pouring
two or three pails of water upon the top of the ground. How any
reflecting person, who looks upona plant as a delicately organized indi-
vidual, can reasonably expect or hope for success after such treatment
in transplanting, is what we never could fully understand. And it has
always, therefore, appeared pretty evident that all such operators must
have very crude and imperfect notions of vegetable physiology, or the
structure and functions of plants.

The first and most important consideration in transplanting should
be the preservation of the roots. By this we do not mean a certain bulk
of the larger and more important ones only, but as far as possible all
the numerous small fibres and rootlets so indispensably necessary in
assisting the tree to recover from the shock of removal. The coarser
and larger roots serve to secure the tree in its position, and convey the
fluids ; but it is by means of the small fibrous roots, or the delicate and
numerous points of these fibres called spongioles, that the food of
plants is imbibed, and the destruction of such is manifestly in the
highest degree fatal to the success of the transplanted tree. To avoid
this as far as practicable, we should, in removing a tree, commence at
such a distance as to inelude a cireumference large enough to comprise
the great majority of the roots. At that distance from the trunk we
shall find most of the smaller roots, which should be earefully loosened

478 APPENDIX.

from the soil, with as little injury as possible; the earth should be
gently and gradually removed from the larger roots, as we proceed
onward from the extremity of the circle to the centre, and when we
reach the nucleus of roots surrounding the trunk, and fairly undermine
the whole, we shall find ourselves in possession of a tree in such a per-
fect condition, that even when of considerable size, we may confident-
ly hope for a speedy recovery of its former luxuriance after being
replanted.

Now to remove a tree in this manner, requires not only a considera-
ble degree of experience, which is only to be acquired by practice, but
also much patience and perseverance while engaged in the work. It is
not a difficult task to remove, in a careless manner, four or five trees in
a day, of fifteen feet in height, by the assistance of three or four men,
and proper implements of removal, while one or two trees only can be
removed if the roots and branches are preserved entire or nearly so.
Yet in the latter case, if the work be well performed, we shall have the
satisfaction of beholding the subjects, when removed, soon taking fresh
root, and becoming vigorous healthy trees, with fine luxuriant heads,
while three-fourths of the former will most probably perish, and the
remainder struggle for several years, under the loss of so large a por-
tion of their roots and branches, before they entirely recover, and put
on the appearance of handsome trees. :

When a tree is carelessly transplanted, and the roots much mutilated,
the operator feels obliged to reduce the top accordingly; as experience
teaches him, that although the leaves may expand, yet they will soon
perish without a fresh supply of food from the roots. But when the
largest portion of the roots are carefully taken up with the tree,
pruning should be less resorted to, and thus the original symmetry and
beauty of the head retained. When this is the case, the leaves contri-
bute as much, by their peculiar action in elaborating the sap, towards
re-establishing the tree, as the roots; and indeed the two act so re-
ciprocally with each other, that any considerable injury to the one
always affects the other. ‘The functions of respiration, perspiration,
and digestion,” says Professor Lindley, “ which are the particular of-
fices of leaves, are essential to the health of a plant; its healthiness

being in proportion to the degree in which these functions are duly

Boye ¥,

APPENDIX. 479

performed. The leaf is in reality a natural contrivance for exposing a
large surface to the influence of external agents, by whose assistance
the crude sap contained in the stem is altered, and rendered suitable to
the particular wants of the species, and for returning into the general
ciréulation, the fluids in their matured condition, In a word, the leaf
of a plant is its lungs and stomach traversed by a system of veins.”*
All the pruning, therefore, that is necessary, when a tree is properly
transplanted, will be comprised in paring smooth all bruises or acci-
dental injuries, received by the roots or branches during the operation,
or the removal of a few that may interfere with elegance of form in the
head.

Next in importance to the requisite care in performing the operation
of transplanting, is the proper choice of individual trees to be transplanted.
In making selections for removal among our fine forest trees, it should
never be forgotten that there are two distinct kinds of subjects, even
of the same species of every tree, viz. those that grow among and
surrounded by other trees or woods, and those which grow alone, in
free open exposures, where they are acted upon by the winds, storms,
and sunshine, at all times and seasons. The former class it will always

be exceedingly difficult to transplant successfully even with the

greatest care, while the latter may always be removed with compara-

tively little risk of failure.

Any one who is at all familiar with the growth of trees in woods or
groves somewhat dense, is also aware of the great difference in the
external appearance between such trees and those which stand singly
in open spaces. In thick woods, trees are found to have tall, slender
trunks, with comparatively few branches except at the top, smooth and
thin bark, and they are scantily provided with roots, but especially with
the small fibres so essentially necessary to insure the growth of the tree
when transplanted. Those, on the other hand, which stand isolated,
have short thick stems, numerous branches, thick bark, and great
abundance of root and small fibres. The latter, accustomed to the
full influence of the weather, to cold winds as well as open sunshine,
have what Sir Henry Steuart has aptly denominated the “ protecting
properties,” well developed ; being robust and hardy, they are well cal-

* Theory of Horticulture.

480 APPENDIX.

culated to endure the violence of the removal, while trees growing in
the midst of a wood sheltered from the tempests by their fellows, and
scarcely ever receiving the sun and air freely except at their topmost
branches, are too feeble to withstand the change of situation, when re-
moved to an open lawn, even when they are carefully transplanted.

« Of trees in open exposures,” says Sir Henry, “ we find that their
peculiar properties contribute, in a remarkable manner, to their health
and prosperity. In the first place, their shortness and greater girth of
stem, in contradistinction to others in the interior of woods, are ob-
viously intended to give to the former greater strength to resist the
winds, and a shorter lever to act upon the roots. Secondly, their
larger heads, with spreading branches, in consequence of the free ac-
cess of light, are as plainly formed for the nourishment as well as the
balancing of so large a trunk, and also for furnishing a cover to shield
it from the elements. Thirdly, their superior thickness and induration
of bark is, in like manner, bestowed for the protection of the sap-ves-
sels, that lie immediately under it, and which, without such defence
from cold, could not perform their functions. Fourthly, their greater
number and variety of roots are for the double purpose of nourish-
ment and strength; nourishment to support a mass of such magnitude,
and strength to contend with the fury of the blast. Such are the ob-
vious purposes for which the unvarying characteristics of trees in open
exposures are conferred upon them. Nor are they conferred equally
and indiscriminately upon all trees so situated. They seem, by the
economy of nature, to be peculiar aduplations to the circumstances and
wants of each individual, uniformly bestowed in the ratio of exposure,
greater where that is more conspicuous, and uniformly: decreasing, as it
becomes less.”*

Trees in which the protecting properties are well developed are fre-
quently to be met with on the skirts of woods ; but those standing singly
here and there, through the cultivated fields and meadows of our farm
lands, where the roots have extended themselves freely in the mellow
soil, are the finest subjects for removal into the lawn, park, or pleasure
ground.

* The Planter’s Guide, p. 105.

APPENDIX. 481

The machine used in removing trees of moderate size is of simple
construction, consisting of a pair of strong wheels about five feet high,
a stout axle, and a pole about twelve feet long. In transplanting, the
wheels and axle are brought close to the trunk of the tree, the pole is
firmly lashed to the stem, and when the soil is sufficiently removed and
ieosened about the roots, the pole, with the tree attached, is drawn
down to a herizental position by the aid of men and a pair of horses.
When the tree is thus drawn out of the hole, it is well secured and
properly balanced upon the machine, the horses are fastened in front
of the mass of roots by gearings attached to the axle, and the whole
is transported te the destined location.

In order more effectually to insure the growth of large specimens
when transplanted, a mode of preparing beforehand a supply of young
roots, is practised by skilful operators. This consists in removing the
top soil, partially undermining the tree, and shortening back many of
the roots; and afterwards replacing the former soil by rich mould, or
soil well manured. This is suffered to remain at least ene year, and
often three or four years; the tree, stimulated by the fresh supply of
food, threws eut an abundance of small fibres, which render success,
when the time for removal arrives, comparatively certain.

It may be well to remark here, that before large trees are transplant-
ed inte their final situations, the latter should be well prepared by
trenching, or digging the soil two er three feet deep, intermingling
throughout the whole a liberal portion of well decomposed manure, or
rich compost. To those who are in the habit of planting trees of any
size in unprepared grounds, or that merely prepared by digging one
spit deep, and turning in a little surface manure, it is inconceivable how
much more rapid is the growth, and how astonishingly luxuriant the ap-
pearance of trees when removed into ground properly prepared. It is
net too much to affirm, that young trees under favorable circumstances
—in soil so prepared—will advance more rapidly, and attain a larger
stature in eight years, than those planted in the ordinary way, without
deepening the soil, will in twenty—and trees of larger size in propor-
tion; a gain of growth surely worth the trifling expense incurred in

the first instance. And the same observation will apply to all plant-
31

482 APPENDIX.

ing. A little extra labor and cost expended in preparing the soil will,
for a long time, secure a surprising rapidity of growth.

In the actual planting of the tree, the chief point lies in bringing
every small fibre in contaet with the soil, so that no hollows or inter-
stices are left, which may produce mouldiness and decay of the roots.
To avoid this, the soil must be pulverized with the spade before filling
in, and one of the workmen, with his hands and a flat dibble of wood,
should fill up all cavities, and lay out the small roots before covering
them in their natural position. When watering is thought advisable
(and we practise it almost invariably), it should always be done while
the planting is going forward. Poured in the hole when the roots are
just covered with the soil, it serves to settle the loose earth compactly
around the various roots, and thus both furnishes a supply of moisture,
and brings the pulverized mould in proper contaet for growth. Trees
well watered when planted in this way, will rarely require it after-
wards; and should they do so, the better way is to remove two or
three inches of the top soil, and give the lower stratum a copious sup-
ply; when the water having been absorbed, the surface should again
be replaced. There is no practice more mischievous to newly moved
trees, than that of pouring water, during hot weather, upon the surface
of the ground above the roots. Acted upon by the sun and wind, this
surface becomes baked, and but little water reaches the roots; or just
sufficient, perhaps, to afford a momentary stimulus, to be followed by
increased sensibility to the parching drought.

With respect to the proper seasons for transplanting, we may remark
that, except in extreme northern latitude, autumn planting is generally
preferred for large, hardy, deciduous trees. It may commence as soon
as the leaves fall, and may be continued until winter. In planting large
trees in spring, we should commence as early as possible, to give them
the benefit of the April rains; if it should be deferred to a later period,
the trees will be likely to suffer greatly by the hot summer sun before
they are well established.

The transplanting of evergreens is generally considered so much more
difficult than that of deciduous trees, and so many persons who have
tolerable success in the latter, fail in the former, that we may perhaps

be expected to point out the reason of these frequent failures.

APPENDIX. 483

Most of our horticultural maxims are derived from English authors
and among them, that of always planting evergreens either in August
or late in autumn. At both these seasons, it is nearly impossible to
succeed in the temperate portions of the United States, from the dif-
ferent character of our climate at these seasons. The genial moisture
of the English climate renders transplanting comparatively easy at all
seasons, but especially in winter, while in this country, our Augusts
are dry and hot, and our winters generally dry and cold. If planted in
the latter part of summer, evergreens become parched * their foliage,
and soon perish. If planted in autumn or early winter, the severe cold
that ensues, to which the newly disturbed plant is peculiarly alive,
paralyses vital action, and the tree is so much enfeebled that, when
spring arrives, it survives but a short period. The only period, there-
fore, that remains for the successful removal of evergreens here, is the
spring. When planted as early as practicable in the spring, so as to
have the full benefit of the abundant rains so beneficial to vegetation
at that season, they will almost immediately protrude new shoots, and
regain their former vigor.

Evergreens are, in their roots, much more delicate and impatient of
dryness than deciduous trees; and this should be borne in mind while
transplanting them. For this reason, experienced planters always
choose a wet or misty day for their removal ; and, in dry weather, we
would always recommend the roots to be kept watered and covered
from the air by mats during transportation. When proper regard is
paid to this point, and to judicious selection of the season, evergreens
will not be found more difficult of removal than other trees,

Another mode of transplanting large evergreens, which is very suc-
eessfully practised among us, is that of removing them with frozen
balls of earth in mid-winter. When skilfully performed, it is perhaps
the most complete of all modes, and is so different from the common
method, that the objection we have just made to winter planting does
not apply to this case. The trees to be removed are selected, the situa-
tions chosen, and the holes dug, while the ground is yet open in autumn.
When the ground is somewhat frozen, the operator proceeds to dig a
trench around the tree at some distance, gradually undermining it, and
leaving all the principal mass of roots embodied in the ball of earth.

484 APPENDIX.

The whole ball is then left to freeze pretty thoroughly (generally till
snow covers the ground), when a large sled drawn by oxen is brought
as near as possible, the ball of earth containing the tree rolled upon it,
and the whole is easily transported to the hole previously prepared,
where it is placed in the proper position, and as soon as the weather
becomes mild, the earth is properly filled in around the ball. A tree,
either evergreen or deciduous, may be transplanted in this way, so as
searcely to show, at the return of growth, any ill effects from its

change of location.

II.

Description of an English Suburban residence, Cuzsuunt Corrace. With views and
plans showing the arrangement of the house and grounds. And the mode of managing :
the whole premises.

[The following description of an interesting suburban residence
near London, with the numerous engravings illustrating it, has been
kindly furnished us for this work, by J. C. Loudon, Esq. It was
originally published in his “ Gardener’s Magazine,” and affords an ad-
mirable illustration of this class of residences, showing what may be
done, and how much beauty and enjoyment realized, on a comparative-

ly limited space of ground.]

CuesHunt CoTtTace, THE ReEsIDENcCE oF Wm. Harrison, Esq.,
PyeLJS.,. £7.

“ All that can render a country seat delightful, and a well furnished library in the house.”
(Evelyn’s Memoirs, by Bray, vol, i., p. 432.)

Tue sides of the road from London to Cheshunt, by Stoke Newing-
ton, Edmonton, and Enfield Wash, are thickly studded with suburban
houses and gardens the whole distance; but, by going straight on
through the Ball’s Pond Turnpike, and taking the country road leading
out of Newington Green, called the Green Lanes, between the Totten-
ham and Edmonton road, and the Barnet Road, and threading our way
through numerous interesting lanes, we may pass through very rural
and umbrageous scenery, with the appearance of but few houses of
any kind. Indeed, it may be mentioned as one of the most remarka-

APPENDIX. 485

ble cireumstances in the state of the country in the neighborhood of
London, that, while all the main roads are bordered by houses for some
miles from town, so as almost to resemble streets; there are tracts
which lie between the main roads, and quite near town, which have
undergone little or no change in the nature of their occupation for

(Fig. 1. Cheshunt Cottage, from the Road.]

several, and apparently many, generations; at all events, not since the
days of Queen Elizabeth. The tracts of country to which we allude
are in pasture or meadow, with crooked irregular hedges, numerous
stiles and footpaths, and occasional houses by the roadsides ; the farms
characterized by large hay barns. Scenery of this kind is never seen’
by the citizen who goes to his country seat along the publie road, in
his family carriage, or in a stage-coach ; and it is accordingly only known
to pedestrians, and such as are not afraid of driving their horses over
rough roads, or meeting wagons or hay-carts in narrow lanes. The
road through the Green Lanes to Enfield is an excellent turnpike road,
always ina good state, with occasional villas near Bour Farm and
Palmer’s Green; and near Enfield, at Forty Hill, there is a handsome
church, built and endowed by Mr. Myers, opposite to his park, which
is filled with large and handsome trees. Afterwards it passes the cele-

brated park of Theobalds, near where formerly stood a royal palace,

eee

486 APPENDIX.

the favorite residence of James I., and winds in the most agreeable
and picturesque manner, under the shade of overhanging trees.
Having made several turns, it leads to a lane with a brook which runs
parallel to the road, a foot-bridge across which forms the entrance to
Mr. Harrison’s cottage, as exhibited in the view Fig. 1.

The ground occupied by Mr. Harrison’s cottage and gardens is
about seven acres, exclusive of two adjoining grass fields. The
grounds lie entirely on one side of the house, as shown in the plan,
Fig. 13, in pp. 510,511. The surface of the whole is flat, and nothing
is seen in the horizon in any direction but distant trees. The beauties
of the place, to a stranger at his first glance, appear of the quiet and
melancholy kind, as shown in the Figs. 2,3; the one looking to the
yight from the drawing-room window and the other to the left: but,
upon a nearer examination by a person conversant with the subjects of
botany and gardening, and knowing in what rural comfort consists,
these views will be found to be full of intense interest, and to afford
many instructive hints to the possessors of suburban villas or cottages.

In building the house and laying out the grounds, Mr. Harrison was
his own arehiteet and Landseape Gardener; not only devising the
genera} design, but furnishing working-drawings of all the details of
the interior of the cottage. His reason for fixing on the present situa-
tion for the house was, the vieinity (the grounds joining) of a house
and walk belonging to a relation of his late wife. The cireumstanee
is mentioned as aceounting in one so fond of a garden, for fixing on a
spot which had neither tree nor shrub in it when he first inhabited it.
Mr. Harrison informs us, and we record it for the use of amateurs
commencing, or extending, or improving gardens, that he-eommenced
his operations about thirty years ago, by purehasing, at a large nursery
sale, large lots of evergreens, not six inehes high, in beds of one
hundred each, sueh as laurels, Portuga} laurels, laurustinuses, bays,
hollies, &e.; with many lots of deciduous trees, in smaller numbers,
which he planted in a nursery on his own ground; and at intervals, as
he from time to time extended his garden, he took out every second
plant, which, with oecasional particular trees and shrubs from nursery
grounds, constituted a continual supply for improvement and extension,

This, with the hospital ground mentioned hereafter, furnished the

487

APPENDIX.

488 : APPENDIX.

means of extensions and improvements at no other expense than .abor,
which, when completed, gave the place the appearanee of an old
garden ; the plants being larger than could be obtained, or, if obtained,
safely transplanted, from nurseries. This is an important considera-
tion, in addition to that of economy, well worth the attention of
amateur improvers of grounds or gardens.

By inspecting the plan, Fig. 4, it will be found that the house con-
tains, on the ground floor, three good living rooms, and two other
rocms (n and ¢) particularly appropriate to the residence of an ama-
teur fond of botany and gardening ; and that it is replete with every
description of accommodation and convenience requisite for the enjoy-
ment of all the comforts and luxuries that a man of taste ean desire for
himself or his friends.

In laying out the grounds, the first object was to insure agricultural
and gardening comforts; and hence the completeness of the farm-yard,
and of the hot-house and frame departments, as exhibited in the plan,
Fig. 6. On the side of the grounds opposite to the hot-houses and
flower-garden are the kitchen-garden and orchard; and though in most
situations it would have been more convenient to have had the farm
buildings, and kitehen garden, and hot-houses en the same side as the
kitchen offices, yet in this case no inconvenience results from their
separation ; because the public road, as will be seen by the plan, Fig.
13, forms a ready medium of communication between them, in eases in
which the communication through the ornamented ground would be
unsightly or inconvenient. In arranging the pleasure-ground, the
great object, as in all similar cases, was to introduce as much variety
as could be conveniently done in a comparatively limited-space. This
has been effeeted chiefly by distributing over the lawn a collection of
trees and shrubs; by forming a small piece of water, and disposing of
the earth excayated into hilly inequalities; and by walks leading to
different points of view, indicated by different kinds of covered seats or
garden structures. In conducting the walks, and distributing the trees
und shrubs, considerable skill and taste have been displayed in conceal-
ing the distant walks, and those which cross the lawn in-different
directions, from the windows of the living-rooms; and also in never
showing any walk but the one which is being walked on, to a spectator

making the circuit of the grounds,

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APPENDIX. 491

Before we enter into further details, we shall describe, first, the plan
of the house ; secondly, that of the farm and garden offices and the hot-
houses ; and, thirdly, the general plan of the grounds,

The house, in its external form and interior arrangement, is to be
considered as a cottage, or rather as a villa assuming a cottage charac-
ter. Hence, the centre part of the house, over the dining and drawing-
rooms, appears from the elevation of the entrance front to be only two
stories high. There is, however, a concealed story over part of the
offices, for servants’ bedrooms.

The house, of which Fig. 4 is an enlarged plan, consists of:

a, The poreh, entered from a bridge thrown across the brook, 4, as
shown in Fig. 4.

b b, Passage from which are seen the stairs to the bedrooms; and in
which, at ii, there is a jib-door and a ventilating window, to prevent
the possibility of the smell from the kitchen or offices, or water-
closet, penetrating to the other parts of the passage.

c, Recess for coats, hats, &c., fitted up with a hat and umbrella-stand,
tables, &e.

d, Drawing-room, with a recess at the further end, fitted up with a sofa
and a writing-table.

eé, Dining-room, with a recess for the largest sideboard, and another for
a smaller sideboard and cellarets.

¥, Library, chiefly lighted from the roof, but having one window to the
garden, and a glass door to the porch, h, also looking into the garden,
and from which the view, Fig. 5, is obtained. This room is fitted up
with book-cases all round; those on each side of the fire-place being
over large cabinets, about 4 ft. 6 in. high, filled with a collection of
shells, minerals, and organic remains, &ec.; and, to save the space
that would otherwise be lost at the angles, pentagonal closets are
formed there, in which maps, and various articles that cannot be
conveniently put on the regular book-shelves, are kept. The doors
to these corner closets are not more than 9 in. in width, and they are
of panelled wainscot. The shelves are fitted in front with mahogany
double reeds, fixing the cloth which protects the tops of the books,
thus giving the appearance of mahogany.

g, Museum for specimens of minerals and other curiosities, entered

492 APPENDIX.

{Fig.5 View from the Library Porch.]

from the porch, h, and lighted from that porch and from a window in
the roof.

h, Porch leading to the garden from the library and museum.

i, Ladies’ water-closet kept warm by the heat from the back of the
servants’ hall fire; the back of the fire-place being a cast iron plate.
ii, Jib-door. k, Plate-closet.

1, Butler’s pantry, lighted from the roof.

m, China-closet, lighted from the roof.

n, Room serving as a passage between the dining-room and the garden
and also between the dining-room and the water-closet 7, containing
a turning-lathe, a carpenter’s work bench, a complete set of
carpenters’ tools, garden tools for pruning, &c., of all sorts; spuds
with handles, graduated with feet and inches, fishing tackle, archery
articles, &e.

o, Inner wine-cellar, where the principal stock of wine is kept. There
is a ventilating opening from this cellar into the passage b.

p; Servants’ hall. :

g, Outer wine-cellar, where the wine given out weekly for use is placed,
and entered in the butler’s book. Between q and the passage 4, are

seen the stairs leading to the servants’ bedrooms. 1, Beer-cellar.

| (eae
X '

APPENDIX. 493

s, Kitchen, lighted from the roof, and from a window on one side.

ss, Scullery, lighted from one side. ¢, Housekeeper’s closet. u, Coal-
cellar. v,Larder, w, Bottle rack. x, Safe forcold meat. y, Wash-
house.

z, Knife-house. d-, Filtering apparatus. 1, Ash-pit. 2, Coal-house.

3, Fire-place to the vinery at 10, in the kitchen-garden 9.

44, Brook. 55, Public road. 6, Kitchen-court.

7, Concealed path to gentlemen’s water-closet.

8, Plantation of evergreens. 9, Kitchen-garden.

10, Vinery. 11, House servants’ water-closet.

12, Servants’ entrance.

Though it cannot be said that the arrangement of the offices of this
house is so good as it would be if they were placed on each side of a
straight passage; yet it will not be denied that these offices include
everything that is desirable for comfort and even Juxury. The chief
difficulty which occurs to a stranger, in looking at the plan, is, to dis-
cover how several of the rooms which compose the offices are lighted ;
and this, it may be necessary to state, is chiefly effected from the roof;
a mode which, in the case of some rooms, such as a butler’s pantry,
china-closet, plate-room, &c., is to be preferred; but which in most
eases it is desirable to avoid.

The three windows to the three principal rooms being on the same
side of the house, and adjoining each other, must necessarily have a
sameness of view; but the quiet character intended to be produced by
the idea of a cottage by a road side, may be supposed to account for
circumstances of this kind, and for various others.

The following are the details of the farmyard, garden offices, and
hot-houses, as exhibited in Fig. 6 :—

1, Rustic alcove, forming a recess under a thatched roof, which covers
the space from the green-house, 3, to the houses or yards, 70, 71, and
72. This rustic aleove has the floor paved with small pebbles, and

- the sides and ceiling lined with young fir-wood, with the bark on.
There is a disguised door on the right, which leads to 69 :
for grinding-mills and other machines; and on the left, Ma a
to 2, the ship-room. In the upper part of the central compartment,
in a square recess fronting the entrance, is a white marble statue of

on ‘ APPENDIX.

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495

xX.

APPENDI

496 APPENDIX.

’
the Indian god Gaudama, or Gaudmia. Three Elizabethan benches,
each as long as one of the sides of the alcove, are placed so as to
disguise the doors. The external appearance of this alcove is
shown in Fig. 7.

Ship-room, paved with slate, and with the walls finished in stucco,
and ceiling with beams painted like oak, to which are hung Indian
spears, and other curiosities, and serving to contain models of ships
and vessels of various sorts during winter. These are placed on

the pond in the summer season; square-rigged vessels at fixed

"anchorage, and the fore-and-aft-rigged ones, whose sails traverse,

such as schooners, cutters, and coasting vessels, with cables of
lengths to allow of their sailing without touching the edge of the
pond; and these continue constantly traversing the pond when there
is any wind. This room also contains a variety of the warlike
instruments of the savages of different countries, a bust of Lord
Nelson, one of the Duke of Wellington, some pictures in mosaic,
and a number of East Indian curiosities. “It serves also as a lobby
to the orangery.

The orangery. The paths are of slate, and the centre bed, or pit,
for the orange trees, is covered with an open wooden grating, on
which are placed the smaller pots; while the larger ones, and the
boxes and tubs, are let down through openings made in the grating,

as deep as it may be necessary for the proper effect of the heads

of the trees. This house, and that for Orchidacez, are heated from

the boiler indicated at 61.

Orchidaceous and fern house, in which a is the stage for Orchida-
cee, and b a cone of rockwork, chiefly of vitrified bricks, for ferns.
These ferns, amounting to above two dozen species, all sprang up
accidentally from the soil attached to some plants which were sent
to Mr. Harrison from Rio Janeiro and other parts of South America.
The shelves round the house are also occupied with Orchidacez, all
of which are in pots, in order that, when they come into flower,
they may be removed to the green-house; as, when thus treated, as
practised by the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, they continue
much longer in bloom than when kept in the degree of heat

necessary for their growth.

APPENDIX. 497

4 c, Lobby between the orangery (3) and the conservatory (5).

4 d, An aviary for canaries, separated from the conservatory and the
lobby by a wire grating, and from the orchidaceous house by a wall.
Both the aviary and the lobby have a glass roof in the same plane
as that of the conservatory, as may be seen in Fig. 8, in p. 499. In
the winter season the temperature of the aviary being the same as
that of the conservatory, the birds require little or no care, except
giving them food ; while they sing freely at that season, and greatly
enliven this part of the garden scenery.

5, Conservatory, with vines under the rafters. The walks are slate,
the shrubs are planted in a bed of free soil edged with slate, and the
back wall is covered with different species of Passiflora, and with
the Tacsénia pinnatistipula,

6, Camellia-house. The camellias kept in pots; the rafters covered
with vines, and the back wall with passifloras and other climbers.
This house, and also 5, are heated from one boiler, as indicated
at 64. ty,

7, Geranium-house. The roof is in the ridge and furrow manner of
Mr. Paxton. This house, and also 8, 9, and 10, are heated from the
boiler indicated at 89.

8, Botanic stove. The roof is in the ridge and furrow manner of
Paxten. The sides of the pit are formed of slabs of slate; and
there is a slate box at e, containing a plant of Misa Cavendishié
with a spike of fruit, two or three of which ripen off weekly. F. is
a cistern for stove aquatics. There is a plant of Brugmansia .
suavélens (Dattra arborea L.) 15 ft. high, with a head 13 ft. in
diameter. When we saw it, Aug. 10th, 277 blossoms were expanded
at once, producing an effect upon the spectator under the tree, when
looking up, which no language can describe. Last year it produced
successions of blossoms, in one of which 600 were fully expanded
at one time. This year it has had five successions of blossoms, and
another is now coming out as the plant expands in growth. There
is a large Brugmansia coccineain thishouse. Both these plants are
in the free soil.

9, House for Cape heaths.

10, Pinery. The roof of this house is in the ridge and furrow manner,
32

498 APPENDIX.

in imitation of Mr. Paxton’s mode; from which it differs, in having
the ridge about one-third higher in proportion to the breadth, in
having the sash-bar deeper, and placed at right angles to the crown
of the ridge and to the furrow, and in having the panes of twice the
size which they are in Mr. Paxton’s roof. " This house was built by
Mr. Harrison’s carpenter, from the general idea given to him; and
before he had been to Chatsworth to examine the original house
with this kind of roof, built there by Mr. Paxton.

(Fig. 7. Rustic Alcove.]

11, Cucumber-pit, on M’Phail’s plan.

12, Succession pine-pit, also on M’Phail’s plan, in order to be heated
with dung linings.

13, Melon-pit.

14, Dutch cold-pit, for preserving lettuces, cauliflowers, ete., during
winter.

15, Tool-house and potting-shed; the tools regularly hung on irons
fixed to the ceiling, or set against the wal!, or laid on shelves,
the place for each sort of took or implement, ropes, etc., being
painted in large white letters on blaek boards. The following rules -
are painted on a board which is hung up in the tool-house :—

499

APPENDIX.

(Fig. 8. General View of the Hot-houses, as seen across the American Garden.]

500 APPENDIX.

“ Rules to be observed by all persons working on these Premises, Master
and Man.

“J. For every tool or implement of any description not returned to
the usual place at night, or returned to a wrong place not appointed
for it, or returned or hung up in a dirty or unfit state for work, the
forfeit is 3d.

“JJ. For every heap of sweepings or rakings left at night uncleared,
forfeit 3d.

“TIT. Every person making use of bad language to any person on
these premises shall forfeit, for each and every such offence, 6d.

“TV. Every person found drunk on these premises shall forfeit one
shilling ; and, if he be in regular employment on the premises, he shall
be suspended from his employment one day for every hour he loses
through drunkenness.

“V. Every person who shall knowingly conceal or screen any
person offending, shall be fined double the amount of the fine for the
offence he so conceals, in addition to the fine of the offending party.

“VI. All forfeits to be paid to the gardener, on or before the
Saturday night following. If any person working regularly on the
premises fail to cohform to the above rules and regulations, the
gardener shall be at liberty to stop his fines from his wages. Further,
should any foreman or journeyman fail to comply with the above rules
and regulations (with a knowledge of them), the gardener shall be at
liberty to seize and sell his tools or part of them, to pay such fines, in
one month from the time the offence was committed.

“VII. All fines to be expended in a supper, yearly, to all the parties

who have been fined.”

When these rules were first adopted, the fines were sufficient to
afford an annual supper with beer, &c.; but of late the amount has
been so small, that Mr. Harrison has found it necessary to add to it to
supply beer, &c., for the supper; a proof of the excellent working of
the rules. Mr. Harrison remarks that these rules were established
about eleven years ago, and that they have been most effective in
preventing all slovenly practices ; an advantage which he considers as
: thus purchased at a very cheap rate.

APPENDIX. 501

16, Mushroom-shed, in which the mushrooms are grown in Oldacre’s
manner.

17, Wood-yard, shaded by three elm trees.

18 18, Calf-pens. 19, Cow-house. 20, Tool-house.

21, Piggeries.

22, 23, 24, places for fattening poultry, on Mowbray’s plan, not, as
usual, in coops, Between this and 25, is a privy for the head
gardener.

25, Place for meat for the pigs, which is passed through a shoot to 26.

26, Two tanks sunk in the ground, covered with hinged flaps, the upper
edges of which lap under the plate above, so as to shoot off the rain,
for souring the food intended for the pigs. One tank, which is
much smaller than the other, is used chiefly for milk and meal for
the fattening pigs, and sows with pigs; and the other for the wash
and other refuse from the house, for the store pigs, which, with the
refuse from the garden, apple-loft, &c., amply supplies the store
pigs and sows, without any purchased food, except when they have
pigs sucking. The good effect of the fermentation or souring is
accounted for by chemists, who have found that it ruptures the
ultimate particles of the meal or other food; a subject treated in
detail in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, vol. vii. p. 445. Ac-
cording to the doctrine there laid down, the globules of meal, or
farinaceous matter of the roots and seeds of plants, lie closely
compacted together, within membranes so exquisitely thin and
transparent that their texture is scarcely to be discerned with the
most powerful microscope. Each farinaceous particle is, therefore,
considered as enveloped in a vesicle, which it is necessary to burst,
in order to allow the soluble or nutritious part to escape. This
bursting is effected by boiling, or other modes of cookery ; and also,
to a certain extent, by the stomach, when too much food is not
taken at a time; but it is also effected by the heat and decomposi-
tion produced by fermentation; and hence, fermented food, like
food which has been cooked, is more easily digested than uncooked
or unfermented food. Plants are nourished by the ultimate particles
of manure in the same way that animals are nourished by the
ultimate particles of food; and hence fermentation is as essential

502 APPENDIX.

to the dunghill as cookery is to food. The young gardener, as
well as the young farmer, may Jearn from this the vast importance
of fermentation, in preparing the food both for plants and animals.

27, Furnace and boiler, for boiling dogs’ meat, heating pitch, &e. ;
placed in this distant and concealed spot, to prevent risk from fire
when pitch or tar is boiled; and, when meat is boiled for dogs, to
prevent the smell from reaching the garden. The reason why it is
found necessary to have a boiler for tar is, that, most of the farm-
buildings and garden-offices being of wood, it is found conducive to
their preservation occasionally to coat. them with tar heated to its
boiling point.

28, Open shed for lumber.

29, Dog-kennel; adjoining which is a privy for the under gardeners.

30, Hay-barn. 31, Lean-to for straw.

32 32, Places for loaded hay-carts to unload, or to remain in when
loaded during the night, in order to be ready to cart to town or to
market early in the morning.

33, House for lumber, wood, &c. 34, Duck-house.

35 35, Houses for geese and turkeys.

36, Open shed for carts and farm implements.

37, Pond surrounded by rockwork and quince trees.

38, House for a spring-cart. 39, Coal-house for Mr. Pratt.

40 40, Places for young chickens. 41, Yard to chicken-houses.

42, Hatching-house for hens, containing boxes, each 1 ft. square within,
with an opening in front 7 in. wide and 7 in. high, the top being
arched, so that the sides of the opening are only 5 in. high.

43, Lobby to Mr. Pratt’s house. 44, His kitchen.

45, Living-room.

46, Oven opening to 47.

47, Brewhouse, bakehouse, and scullery, containing a eopper for brew-
ing, another for the dairy utensils, and a third for washing, besides
the oven already mentioned.

48, Dairy. The milk dishes are of white earthenware; zine having
been tried, but having been found not to throw up the cream so
speedily and effectively as had been promised. One zine dish, with

handles, is used for clotted cream, which is regularly made during

APPENDIX. 503

the whole of the fruit season, and occasionally for dinner parties, for
preserved tarts, &c. We observed here small tin cases for sending
eggs and butter to town. The butter, wrapped in leaves, or a butter
cloth, is placed in the bottom of a tin box about a foot square,
so as to fill the box completely ; and another tin box is placed over
it, the inner box resting on a rebate, to prevent its crushing the
butter below it. In this latter box, the eggs are packed in bran,
after which the cover of the outer one is put on, and the whole may
then be sent to any distance by coach. The dairy is supplied with
water from a pump in the scullery; the water being conveniently
distributed in both places by open tubes and pipes.

49, Coachman’s living-room.

50, Ceachman’s kitehen, and stairs to two bedrooms over.

51, Court for inclosing the coachman’s children.

52, Lebby to the dairy. 53, Lobby to Mr. Pratt’s brew-house.

54, Cellar, 55, Chicken-yard.

56, Farmer's yard.

57, A gravelled court separating the court-yard, 59, from the stable-
yard, 56.

58, Place for slaughtering in. 59, Stable-yard.

60, Shed for compost, and various ether garden materials; such asa tub
for liquid manure, in which it ferments and forms a scum on the top,
while the liquid is drawn off below by a faucet with a screw spigot,
such as is common in Derbyshire and other parts of the north, which
admits the water te come out through the under side of the faucet.
Here are also kept paint pots, oil cans, boxes, baskets, and a variety
of other matters. The whole of this shed is kept warm by the heat
which eseapes from the fire-place in 61, and from the baek of the
orchidaceous house, 4.

61, Fire-place and boiler for heating the orchidaceous house.

62, Place for arranging garden pots.

63, Shed, with roof of patent slates, which becomes a cheap mode of
roofing in consequence of requiring so few rafters, amply lighted from
the roof, and kept warm in the winter time by the heat proceeding
from the boilers at 61 and 64. This shed contains a potting-bench,
cistern of water, and compartments for mould; and, being lofty, it

504 APPENDIX.

contains in the upper part two apartments inclosed by wirework, for
curious foreign pigeons or other birds. On the ground are set,
during the winter season, the large agaves and other succulent plants
which are then in a dormant state, and which are kept in the open
garden during summer. On the whole, this is an exceedingly con-
venient working shed; being central to the houses 3, 4, 5, and 6;
being kept comfortably warm by the boilers; being well lighted from
the roof; and having the two windows indieated at 62, before which
is the potting-bench.

64, Fire-place to the conservatory and camellia-house.

65, Place for keeping food for the rabbits and pigeons, with stairs to
the pigeon-house, whieh is placed over it.

[Fig. 9. View from the Chinese Temple.]

66, Rabbit-house containing twenty-one hutches, each of which is a
cubic box of 20 in. on the side. Each box is in two divisions, an
eating-place and a sleeping-place; the sleeping-place is 8 in. wide,
and is entered by an opening in the back part of the partition. Both

APPENDIX. 505.

divisions have an outer door in front; and, in order that the door of
the sleeping-place may not be opened by any stranger, it is fastened
by an iron pin, which cannot be seen or touched till the door of the
eating-place is opened. Mr. Pratt pointed this out to us as an
improvement in the construction of rabbit-hutches, well deserving
of imitation wherever there is any chance of boys or idle persons
getting into the rabbit-house. The rabbits are fed on garden
vegetables and bran, barley, oatmeal, and hay, making frequent
changes; the vegetables being gathered three or four days before
being used, and laid in a heap to sweat, in order to deprive them of
a portion of their moisture. Salt is also given occasionally with the
bran. Cleanliness, and frequent change of food, have now, for five
years, kept the rabbits in constant health. It ought never to be
forgotten, that attention to the above rules, in partially drying green
succulent vegetables, is essential to the thriving of rabbits kept in
hutches ; and, hence, in London and other large towns, instead of
fresh vegetables, they are fed with clover hay. One of the kinds
of rabbit bred at Mr. Harrison’s is the hare rabbit, mentioned in the
Encyclopedia of Agriculture, §7355, the flesh of which resembles
that of the hare in quantity and flavor. Mr. Pratt has fed rabbits
here, which, when killed, weighed 11 lbs. We can testify to their .
excellence when cooked.

67, Coach-house, with stairs to hay-loft. 68, Stable.

69, Mill-house, containing mills for bruising corn for poultry, a portable
flour mill, a lathe, and grinding-machine for sharpening garden
instruments and similar articles. In the Angel Inn in Oxford, some
years ago,a lathe of this sort was used for cleaning shoes, the
brushes being fixed to the circumference of the wheel, and the shoes
applied to them, while the wheel was turned round by a tread lever,
or treadle.

70, Root-house, containing binns for keeping different kinds of potatoes,
carrots, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, beets, and yellow, French,
and white turnips, with shelves for onions; and a loft over, which is
used as a fruit room, The fruit is kept partly on shelves, and
partly on cupboard trays.

71, Store place for beer or ale, which is brewed by Mr. Pratt for the

“ay

506 APPENDIX.

use of the family in London, as well as Cheshunt; here is also a
regular staircase to the fruit-room.

72, Harness-room, properly fitted up with every convenience, and
warmed by a stove.

73, A lobby or court to a door which opens to the brook, for the
purpose of clearing out an excavation made in the bottom of the
channel, in order to intercept mud, and thus render the water quite
clear where it passes along the pleasure-ground, and is seen from
the library window and the grand walk (Fig. 5, p. 492). The whole
of any mud which may collect in the brook may be wheeled up a
plank through this door without dirtying the walk.

4 74, The brook.

75, Foot entrance to Mr. Pratt’s house, the coachman’s house, the
dairy, ete. 3

76, Carriage entrance to the stable-court, garden offices, farm-yard, ete.

77, Private entrance to the garden, over the rustic bridge shown in
Fig. 5.

78, Masses of vitrified bricks and blocks of stone, distributed among
lawn and shrubs; among which, large plants of agave, and other
rock exotics, are placed in the summer season, the pots and tubs
being concealed by covering them with the stones forming the
masses of rock-work. Here the semicircular space surrounded by
rock contains a collection of Himalayan rhododendrons, ete., in pots,
many of them seedlings which have not yet flowered.

79 79, American shrubbery, consisting chiefly of rhododendrons,
azaleas, magnolias, etc., growing in the peat earth kept moist by the
brook.

80, American garden consisting of choice American shrubs, and
American herbaceous plants. In the centre of the circle a handsome
tazza vase on a bold pedestal.

81, Two semicircles for dahlias; the surrounding compartments
containing a collection of roses.

82. Garden of florist’s flowers.

83 83, Garden of herbaceous plants, chiefly annuals. The walks in all
these gardens are edged with slate. The bed 83} contains a collec-

tion of choice standard roses. 84, Dablias.

APPENDIX. 507

85, Double ascent of the steps to a mound formed of the earth
removed in excavating for the pond. From the platform to which
these steps lead, there is a circuitous path to the Chinese temple ;
and the steps are ornamented with Chinese vases, thus affording a
note of preparation for the Chinese temple: The outer sides of the
steps are formed of rockwork, and between the two stairs is a
pedestal with Chinese ornaments.

86, The Chinese temple, on the highest part of the mount formed of
the soil taken from the excavation now constituting the pond. The
view from the interior of this temple is shown in Fig. 9, p. 504.

87, Rustic steps descending from the Chinese temple to the walk
which borders the pond. 88, The pond.

89, Open tent, with sheet-iron roof supported by iron rods, This

structure may be seen in the view Fig. 10.

[Fig. 10. Distant view of the House aud Tent across the Pond.)

90 90, Masses of evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs.

91, Grotto, made late last year, not yet completed. It was formerly
an outer ice-house, but it failed as such. The entrance is surround-
ed by rockwork, and the interior in the form of a horseshoe,
furnished with a wooden bench as a seat. Over this grotto, is an

umbrella tent, as shown in the view Fig. 11. 92, Dahlias.

508 APPENDIX.

[Fig. 11. Grotto, with Umbrella Tent over.]

93, Slip of ground for compost, and various other materials requisite
for the garden and farm-yard; communicating with the frame-
ground by the door 94, with the farm-yard by the gate 95, and with
the farm by the gate 96.

94, Door from the frame-ground to the slip behind.

95, Gate from the slip to the farmyard.

96, A gate from the slip to the fields of the farm.

97, Grass field, forming part of the farm.

Fig. 13, in pp. 510, 511, is a vertical profile of the gardens and
pleasure ground, with the farmyard, and asmall portion of the farm.
This view shows :—

1, The house. 2, The domestic offices and yard. 3, Vinery in a small
garden.

4, Back entrance to the domestie offices, and the smaller kitchen gar-
den. On one side of this walk is placed one of Fuller’s portable
ice-boxes.

5, The smaller kitchen-garden.

6, Broad border for pits; and in which there is a cold pit for protecting
vegetables during winter.

7, Boundary plantation.

8, Angular brick wall, for the sake of having different aspects for the

APPENDIX. 509

fruit trees which are trained against it; and for strength, being only
one brick in thickness for lessening the expense.

9, Pond in the largest kitchen garden, supplied from the brook by pipes
with waste pipe to the pond on the lawn.

10, Filbert plantation.

11, Orchard and boundary plantation.

[Fig. 12. Covered Seat, of grotesque and rustic Masonry.]

12, Covered seat, of which a view is shown in Fig. 12. In front of this
seat there is a mulberry tree of large dimensions, which was trans-
planted by Mr. Harrison, when it was upwards of 80 years of age.
The instruments with which a number of large plants, particularly
shrubs, were transplanted under Mr. Harrison’s direction, when the
grounds were being altered and enlarged, were described for us by
Mr. Pratt. (See Gardener’s Magazine, vol. xi. p. 134.) Mr. Pratt
kept for many years large plants which had suffered from many
causes, or which were not immediately wanted, in what he called an
hospital for these purposes.

13, A flower garden, in which for several years a large Araucaria brasi-
liénsis stood out in the centre bed; but it was killed to the ground
in the winter of 1837-8.

14, The rustic covered seat, shown in Fig 14, in p. 513, and of which
Fig. 15 is an elevation of the back, showing the manner in which

the barked poles are arranged,

510 APPENDIX.

2
a
&
v
a
i
&

: LE xs] 9

(Fig. 13.]

| APPENDIX. 511

i ‘ i i
i p

}

i i i
il

(Fig. 13.]

ore APPENDIX.

15, Basins of water for aquatics. \

16, Rustic building, of which a view is shown in Fig. 16. In the in-
terior is an alto-relievo of statuary marble, representing a female
over a funeral vase, surrounded by a sort of broad frame of corals,
cornua Ammonis, and large mineral specimens of different kinds,

17, Groups of roses, dahlias, and other ornamental flowers.

18, ‘Two semicircular beds of roses.

19, A covered double seat, one half looking towards the roses and the
other in the opposite direction. In the latter are kept the instru-
ments for playing at what is called lawn billiards, which is said to
be a game intermediate between bowls and common billiards. This
game is little known, but materials for playing at it are sold by
Messrs. Cato & Son, wire-workers, Holborn Hill, London, who sent
out with them the following printed rules :—

“This game, which differs from all others, should be played on a
lawn about twelve yards square ; the socket with the ring being fixed
in the centre by a block of wood fixed into the earth. It may be
played by two or four persons, either separately, or as partners, each
player having a ball with a cue pointed to correspond. Care must
be taken to fix the ring at the end of the cue close to the ball before
striking.”

20, The pond. On the margin of which, at k, is the boat-house seen
in Fig. 1'7, in p. 517.

21, Descending steps through evergreens, from which is seen the dis-
tant view of the house and the tent, as in Fig. 10, in p. 507.

22, Dahlia plantation.

23, Chinese temple, from the interior of which is obtained the view
shown in Fig. 9, in p. 504. Behind the temple, a little to one side,
is the grotto shown at 91 in the plan, Fig. 6,in pp. 494, 495, and also
in the view, Fig. 11, in p. 508.

24, The situation of the tent shown in Fig. 10.

25, The different flower and shrub gardens described in detail in the
plan, Fig. 6, pp. 494, 495.

26, The hot-houses, pits, frames, farm buildings, &c., shown in Fig. 6.

27, Grass fields, forming part of the farm.

28, Point from which the view of the hot-houses, Fig. 8, in p. 499, is

APPENDIX. 513

taken, and also, turning round, the view of the house, Fig. 18, in p.
519. .

29, Secret entrance to the grounds. 30, Principal entrance to the:
house.

31, Entrance to the stable-court and farmyard.

fFig. 14. Rustic Covered Seat, of Woodwork.]

Remarks.—In pointing out the principal sources of the professional

instruction which a young gardener may derive from examining this

——— =

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itl

Whi)

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CAAT

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(Fig. 15. Elevation of the Buck.)

514 ' APPENDIX.

place, we shall first direct attention to the garden structures. These,
whether of the ornamental or useful kind, are executed substantially,
and with great care and neatness ; while the farm buildings, being
chiefly of wood, show how great an extent of accommodation may be
obtained without regularity of plan, and without ineurring much ex-
pense. A good exercise for the young designer would be to distribute

the same accommodation, properly classed, along the sides of a square

ae RA
; i SSNS
Ly EC am

A 2 =
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aa

HET | Za)

[Fig. 16. Hermit’s Seat, and Classical Vase.]

or squares, or along the sides of a parallelogram or polygon, and either
detached from or connected with the horticultural buildings.

The manner in which the working-sheds are heated by the waste
heat from the furnaces, in consequence of which, in severe weather,
much more work will be done in them, and in a better manner, and in
which they are lighted, so as to serve for protecting certain kinds of
plants during winter, is worthy of imitation ; as is the mode of heating
so many different houses from only three boilers. In no garden

structures have we seen a more judicious use of the Penrhyn slate;

APPENDIX. 515

paths, edgings, shelves, cisterns, boxes for plants, copings, kerbs,
partitions, and substitutes for dwarf walls, being all made of it. The
order and neatness with which all the different tools, utensils, &c., are
kept in the horticultural and farm buildings, are most exemplary, and
greatly facilitate the despatch of business.

In the farm buildings, the fittings up of the Aes eens the
rabbit-house, and the dairy and scullery, well deserve attention; and
also the arrangement for fermenting the food of the pigs in under-
ground cisterns, not too warm for summer, nor so cold as to check
fermentation in winter. The manure of the horses, of the cows, of
the pigs, of the rabbits, of the pigeons, and of the poultry, is kept in
separate pits, that it may be used, if desirable, in making up different
composts,

There are three liquid-manure tanks, in which the liquid matter,
which in most farmyards is wasted, is fermented, and afterwards mixed
up with soil for use in the kitchen-garden, or used in forming composts
for particular plants: The liquid-manure from the stables is kept
apart from that from the cow-heuse ; and the general drainings of the
yard, and of the frame-ground in the kitchen-garden, are fermented by
themselves. The liquid manure with which Mr. Pratt waters his plants
is formed chiefly of the sweepings of the pigeon, rabbit, and cow
houses, with lime; and is kept in a eask in a close shed (60 in the
plan Fig. 6, in p. 494, 495), so that the temperature admits of its
fermenting in winter, as well as in summer: a thick scum rises to the
top of the cask, and the liquid is drawn out from the bottom as clear
as old ale. The plants which Mr. Pratt waters with this liquid are
chiefly those of rapid growth, such as the Dat#ra, Brugmansia, and
other soft-wooded tree plants, which, like these, are cut in every year,
and appear to profit by the stimulating effect of this manure. He
gives it also, occasionally, to various other plants which appear to want
vigor; but has not yet had sufficient experience of its effects, to give
alist of plants to which it ought to be applied.

In order to produce as much manure as possible, as well for the
farm as for the garden, all leaves, haulm, and waste vegetable matters,
are carefully collected, and fermented by the addition of fresh stable
dung; and heaps of different kinds of soils, procured from different

516 APPENDIX.

parts of the country, are constantly kept in the slip adjoining the
frame-ground, ready for use. _ ra

The grounds being nearly level are readily supplied with water from
the ponds and from the brook; and there are concealed wells, com-
municating with these sources by pipes from the brook, in different
parts of the grounds, and more especially in the kitehen-garden, from
which the plants can be abundantly watered in the growing season
with comparatively little labor; there being six different places,
including the ponds and brook, from which the gardeners take water,
and all the strawberries are planted close to the wells in the inner and
outer walled gardens.

The kitchen-gardens, the hot-houses, and the store-houses and
some other structures, can be locked up at pleasure, Mr. Harrison and
Mr. Pratt being the only persons having complete master keys. Part .
of the outer kitchen-garden is inclosed with an open iron spike fence,
5 ft. 6 in. high, within which and the inner walled garden are the
strawberries and choicest gooseberries, figs, ete., and these inelosures
are opened only by the master keys. The whole, therefore, of the
wall and best fruit is secured from plunder. -

The beauties of this place, as has been already mentioned, depend
chiefly on the taste and judgment displayed in laying out the walks,
and distributing the trees and shrubs ; though the choice of a situation
for the pond, and the mount adjoining it, is also a matter of some
consequence.

The trees. and shrubs, being comparatively limited in number,
consist of one of almost every kind that is to be procured in British
nurseries, exclusive of those which are common, or not considered
ornamental. In selecting these, the more rare kinds have been
procured, and planted quite young; Mr. Harrison and Mr. Pratt
having found, by experience, that the pines and firs should be planted
out when not more than of three or four years’ growth. When the
plants have been in pots, the balls should be gently broken with the
hand, and afterwards all the earth washed away from the roots by the
application of water. The plant may then be placed on a hill of
prepared mould, and the roots stretched out, so as to radiate from the
plant in every direction, and afterwards covered with mould.

APPENDIX. 517

(Fig. 17. Boat House and Agave Mount.|]

The masses of trees and shrubs are chiefly on the mount near the
lake, and along the margin which shuts out the kitchen-garden; and
in these places they are planted in the gardenesque manner, so as to
produce irregular groups of trees, with masses of evergreen and
deciduous shrubs as undergrowth, intersected by glades of turf. They
are seattered over the general surface of the lawn, so as to produce a
continually Varying effect, as viewed from the walks; and so as to
disguise the boundary, and prevent the eye from seeing from one
extremity of the grounds to the other, and thus ascertain their extent.
The only points at which the lawn is seen directly across from the
drawing-room window are in the direction of / and m, Fig. 13, in pp.
510, 511; but, through these openings, the grass field beyond appears
nnited with the lawn; so that the extent thus given to the views from
the drawing-room windows is of the greatest assistance to the
character of the place, with reference to extent. From every other
part of the grounds, the views across the lawn are interrupted
by some tree, bush, or object which conceals the boundary ; or, if the
boundary is seen on one side, as in passing along the walk from 16 by
18 to 22, there is ample space on the lawn side to keep up the idea
of extent.

518 APPENDIX.

In many situations, this walk, as seen on paper, would be considered
to be too near the boundary; but in the grounds the narrow plantation
from 22 to 18 is of evergreens, chiefly hollies, which already partially
shut out all view of the boundary or the field, and which are ultimate-
ly intended to spread their upper branches over the walk, so as to give
it a character of shade and gloom, different from any other in these
grounds. )

In general, it may be Jaid down as a rule, that the boundary between
a lawn and the park or field beyond should not be such as to cut the
landscape, as it were, in two; and another rule is, that the walks
should never be so near this fence, or should not be so conducted
when near it,as to admit of the spectator looking directly across.
Indeed, in scenery, no rule is generally more applicable than this, viz.
that all straight lines, whether fences, roads, canals, or rivers, and all
regular symmetrical objects, such as buildings, should: be looked at
obliquely. Applying this rule, therefore, to the scenery between the
walk and the fence, from 18 to 16, we should say that either the
direction of the walk ought to be altered, so as to remove it further
from the boundary, or the boundary extended further into the field ;
and instead of being bordered by a hedge-like fringe of shrubs, it
should only be broken here and there by oecasional bushes and trees,
connected and harmonizing in position with other trees beyond the
fence. If it were desirable to avoid altering the boundary, then we
should recommend continuing the walk which commences at d near
19, by n andoo, to pnear 16. If there were nothing to see or be
seen beyond the boundary, then, unless the boundary fenee were a
conservative wall, that is, a wall covered with half-hardy ornamental
plants, we should still prefer changing the direction of the walk, so as
to take away from the monotonous appearance of continually skirting
the boundary. In every place, however small, there ought to be some
part left which the visitor has not seen, and which may leave the
impression on his mind, that, however much he has been shown, he
has not seen everything. We make these observations with great
deference to Mr. Harrison, who has paid much attention to the subject
of Landscape Gardening, and shown much practical taste and good

sense both in that art and in architecture.

APPENDIX. 519

It is, however, right to state that Mr. Harrison accords with our
general view of the subject, but “defends the walk in question as an
exception founded on his objects in making it; which were, Ist, to have
a waik different from any other in the garden; and 2d, a walk shelter-
tered from the winter southerly gales, and ornamented by the bloom of
the laurustinus at that season. It is, therefore, so slightly curved as
merely to avoid a straight line, and permits an extent of length, not
found in any other part, to be seen on descending the elevation at the
east end, or on emerging from wood at the west end, where, when the
improvements connected with it are finished, it will enter a dense plan-
tation, the walk going round at the back of the building in that corner.
The fence would have been entirely excluded from either near or dis-
tant view, and the eye carried so as not to catch a view of the grounds
of the field nearer than one hundred yards or more at the least, if the
laurustinuses had not suffered so severely in 1837-38; but these will
by next year, and by trees already planted along the border, and others
to be planted irregularly, at intervals, in the field near the fence in a

= = - Em SR er Oe
(Fig. 18. Garden Front of Cheshunt Cottage.]
great measure, Mr. Harrison thinks, obviate the objection made, or at
least lessen the foree of it, as future appearances will, he thinks,
» prove.—W. H.”

520 APPENDIX.

The trees and shrubs on the lawn are almost all disposed in the gar-
denesque manner; that is,so that each individual plant may assume its
natural shape and habit of growth. The masses are also chiefly plant- ©
ed in the same style ; and, as the trees and shrubs advance in growth,
they are cut in, or thinned out, so that each individual, if separated
from the mass to which it belongs, and considered by itself alone, shall
be a handsome plant. At the same time, in order to produee as much
variety as possible, the picturesque style of planting, in which trees
and shrubs are so closely grouped together as partially to injure each
other’s growth, occasionally occurs, for the sake of producing variety.
With the exception of the pines and firs, the other trees have been
selected more for their picturesque effect and variety of foliage, than
for their botanical interest. Among these are the Scoteh pine for its
darkness; the P pulus angulata for its large leaves, and for its proper-
ty of preserving these till destroyed by severe frost, long before which
all the other poplars have become naked ;, the A’cer macrophyllum, for
its large leaves; the Montpelier maple, for its small ones; the Negéndo
fraxinifolium, for its green-barked shoots; the American oaks, for the
singular variety in form and color of their foliage; the catalpa, for its
broad rich yellowish leaves, and its showy blossoms, which appear late
in the season; the deciduous cypress; the bondue, or Kentueky coffee
tree; the cut-leaved alder, the tulip tree, the purple beech, the purple
hazel, the Oriental plane, of which there are several fine specimens, the
variegated sycamore, and other variegated trees and shrubs, which are
always so beautiful in spring; those thorns and crabs which are beau-
tiful or remarkable for their blossoms in the spring, and for their fruit
in autumn; the Nepal sorbus, so interesting for its’ large woolly
leaves, which die off ofa fine straw color; the magnolias; the rhodo-
dendrons, the heaths, the brooms, and the double-blossomed furze, be-
sides various striking or popular plants, such as the variegated hollies,
the scarlet arbutus, ete. Among the detached trees and small groups,
there is scarcely to be met with a single bush or tree that a general
observer will not find noticeable for something in its foliage, general
form, flowers, or fruit. The Magnolia grandiflora var. exoniénsis
flowers freely as a standard without any protection, and was not even

injured by the winter of 1837-8; nor was A’rbutus procéra, also uns

Par. .
, - .
‘s ia ; s
: ; -
_

APPENDIX. 521

protected. A number of the more rare trees and shrubs, such as
Arauearia brasiliénsis, which had stood out eight years, A Cunning-
hami, Pinus insignis, P. palastris, P. Girardiana, P. canariénsis, ete.,
were killed during the winter of 1837-8, and a number of others,
which were severely injured, are now recovering. Mr. Pratt, the head
gardener, did not begin to prune the trees which were injured till the
rising of the sap showed the extent of the injury that they had re-
ceived. After waiting till the middle of summer, it was found that the
laurustinus, sweet bay, Chinese privet, and various other shrubs, were
alive to the height of from 3 ft. to 5 ft., and after the dead wood was
cut out, the plants soon became covered with young shoots and
foliage.

The Walks are so laid out and planted as to be sheltered or border-
ed by evergreens, for the sake of their lively appearance during winter.
They are also so contrived as to be shaded from the sun by deciduous
trees during summer; while these trees being naked during winter, ad-
mit the sun at that season to dry the grounds. The walksare laid out
in different directions, in order that, from whatever point the wind may
blow, at least one walk will be sheltered from it. The greater num-
ber are in the direction of nerth and south, because walks in that di-
rection are best exposed to the sun in the winter season, which is the
period of the year in which the proprietor chiefly resides here. It is
always desirable, in a small place, that all the walks should be conceal-
ed from the windows, except that immediately under the eye, and that,
in walking through the grounds, no path should be seen except the one
walked on, and that (except in the case of a straight avenue) only for
a moderate distance. These rules (derived from the principle of va-
riety and intrigacy) have been carefully attended to by Mr. Harrison,
and hence the walk from a to 4, in the plan, Fig. 13, in pp. 510, 511, is
concealed by raising the turf on the side next the house higher than on
the opposite side, while that from c to d is concealed by the bushes and
trees at c, and more especially by a large rhododendron at ee. The
walk fg h is concealed from the walk i, partly by aswell in the surface
of the turf on the side next.i, but chiefly by the bushes which are
scattered along its margin. At g, there is a clump which prevents any
one on the walk 7 from seeing the line g f, and any one on the walk g

o22..- APPENDIX.

Ff from seeing the line i. In walking along from f to h, it is clear that
the trees and shrubs on the left hand will always prevent the eye from
seeing the walk to any great distance. All the other walks through
the lawn are concealed in a similar manner, so that a person walking
in the grounds never sees any other walk than that which lies imme-
diately before him, and, therefore, in looking across the lawn, he never
can discover the extent either of what he has seen, or of what he has
yet to see. To form a great number of walks of this sort, and lead
the spectator over them without showing him more than one walk ata
time, but taking care, at the same time, to let him have frequent and
extensive views across the lawn, and these views always different,
constitute the grand secret of making a small place look large.

The walks are filled to the brim with gravel, kept firmly rolled, and
their grass margins are clipt, but never cut, because the gravel, being

almost as high as the turf, the latter can never sink down, and swell

NOS
SS) oe SaN —
Fea); SS,
( ZENE ES 7
3) (Pn ES DPA a=
ysl A Ia eee

[Fig. 19. View across the Water, looking towards the House.]

APPENDIX. 523

out over the former. This it invariably does when the turf is a few
inches higher than the gravel, and, hence, paring off the part of the
turf which had projected was originally, no doubt, adopted only as a
remedy for the evil, though it is now erroneously practised by gar-
deners as an evidence of care and good keeping. As much of the
beauty of the walk depends upon the beauty of its boundary, the
feeling that this boundary is likely to be disturbed every time the walk
is cleaned, or the adjoining turf mown, is extremely disagreeable.
The freshly pared turf becomes a spot or scar in the scene, withdraw-
ing the attention from the walk itself, and from the adjoining grounds,
to a point, or rather a line, which is in itself of little consequence, but
which, by the paring, is obtruded on the eye, so as to destroy all
allusion to stability. We are displeased with the paring of the edges,
because it conveys the idea that the walks are not finished, or that they
are liable to be disturbed in this way from time to time, and nothing,
either in grounds or in buildings, is more unsatisfactory than an
apparent want of stability or fixedness. It is as much the nature of
the ground to be fixed and immovable, as it is of trees and shrubs to
inerease in growth, and hence, any operation, such as clipping, which
seems to stop the growth of the one, is as unsatisfactory to the eye as
paring, which seems to derange the fixed state of the other. Would
that we could impress this on the minds of all gardeners and their
employers !

The Pond is of an irregular shape, so arranged as with the assist-
ance of the island to prevent the whole of it, and consequently its
limited extent, from being seen from any one point in the garden. For
the same reason, the walk only goes along one side, there being but
one point on the western side, viz. where the iron seats are close to
the agaves, from which any part of the pond can be seen. The pond
is so situated as to form the main feature in the right hand view from .
the drawing-room window, as shown in Fig. 3, in p. 487; the wooded
island (which is shown rather too much in the middle in the plan,
though, perhaps, not so in reality) disguising the boundary from that
and every other point of view. The bank of the pond on one side is
rocky, and nearly perpendicular, while on the other it is sloping, and
partly covered with shrubs. At x, in Fig. 13, in p. 511, there is a boat

524 APPENDIX.

house, on the top of which are several large agaves, the common, the
variegated, and Agave plicatilis ; the tubs containing which are so dis-
guised by rockwork, as to create an allusion to the appearance of these
plants in their native habitats. The appearance of these agaves, and
also of a large erassula, is indicated in a view of the boat house, Fig.
17, in p. 517, and it is only from a seat among these agaves that any
part of the pond can be seen from this side of it. Had a walk been
conducted completely round the pond, and near its margin, the charm
of partial concealment would have been entirely lost. The high banks
have been formed with earth taken out of the pond, and these have
given occasion to a considerable variety in the inclination, as well as in
the direction, of the walks. The banks are‘planted on the same
principle as the open lawn, that is, with trees and shrubs having
striking foliage or showy flowers, and with a judicious mixture of
evergreens to give the effect of cheerfulness in winter. In the water are
two large plants of Calla ethiopica, Lin., which cover a space of nearly
5 ft. in diameter; they have lived there through ten winters without
any protection, the water being 5 ft. deep, and they flower luxuriantly
every year. The views across the water, to the house and to the
other parts of the grounds, are singularly varied, owing to the winding
direction of the walk, and the consequently changing position of the
island, and of the trees in the foreground and middle distance. One
of these views may be seen in Fig. 19, and others have been already
given in pp. 487, 504, 507, 517.

The Flower-Garden (25, in Fig. 13, in pp.510, 511), is laid out, as the
ground plan indicates, in beds, everywhere bordered with slate; a
flower-garden of this kind, with the walks gravelled, having the advan-
tage of rendering the flowers accessible to ladies immediately after
rain, when they are often in their greatest beauty, and, at all events, in
their greatest freshness and vigor, an advantage which is not obtained
when the beds are on turf. There are also flower-beds on turf in
other parts of the grounds, but these are filled with roses, dahlias, and
other large-growing plants in masses, the beauties of which do not

require to be closely examined.

io) Doel ‘
: ie

APPENDIX. 525

ul.

Note on the treatment of Lawns

As a lawn is the ground-work of a landscape garden, and as the

management of a dressed grass surface is still a somewhat ill-under-
stood subject with us, some of our readers will, perhaps, be glad to
receive a very few hints on this subject. _
_ The unrivalled beauty of the “velvet lawns” of England has passed
into a proverb. This is undoubtedly owing, in some measure, to their
superior care and keeping, but mainly to the highly favorable climate
of that moist and sea-girt land. In a very dry climate it is nearly
impossible to preserve that emerald freshness in a grass surface, that
belongs only to a country of “ weeping skies.” During all the present
season, on the Hudson, where we write, the constant succession of
showers has given us, even in the heat of midsummer, a softness and
verdure of lawn that can scarcely be surpassed in any climate or
country.

Our climate, however, is in the middle states one of too much heat
and brilliancy of sun, to allow us to keep our lawns in the best condi-
tion without considerable care. Beautifully verdant in spring and
autumn, they are often liable to suffer from drought in midsummer.
On sandy soils, this is especially the case, while on strong loamy soils,
a considerable drought will be endured without injury to the good
appearance of the grass. It therefore is a suggestion worthy of the
attention of the lover of a fine lawn, who is looking about for a
country residence, to carefully avoid one where the soil is sandy. The
only remedy in such a soil is a tedious and expensive one, that of con-

"stant and plentiful topdressing with a compost of manure and heavy
soil—marsh mud—swamp muck, or the like. Should it fortunately be
the case (which is very rare) that the sub-stratum is loamy, deep
ploughing, or trenching, by bringing up and mixing with the light sur-
face soil some of the heavier earth from below, will speedily tend to
remedy the evil.

In almost all cases where the soil is of good strength, a permanent
lawn may be secured by preparing the soil deeply before finally laying
it down. This may be done readily, at but little outlay, by deep

526 : APPENDIX.

ploughing—a good and cheap substitute for trenching—that is to say,
making the plough follow three times in the same furrow. This, with
manure, if necessary, will secure a depth of soil sufficient to allow the
roots of plants to strike below the effects of a surface drought.

In sowing a lawn, the best mixture of grasses that we can recom-
mend for this climate, is a mixture of Red-top and white Clover—two
natural grasses found by almost every roadside—in the proportion of
three fourths of the former, to one of the latter.

There is a common and very absurd notion current (which we have
several times practically disproved), that, in order to lay down a lawn i
well, it is better to sow the seed along with that of some grain; thus,
starving the growth of a small plant by forcing it to grow with a
larger and coarser one. A whole year is always lost by this proeess—
indeed more frequently two. Many trials have convinced us that the
proper mode is to sow a heavy crop of grass at once, and we advise
him who desires to have speedily a handsome turf, to follow the
English practice, and sow three to four bushels of seed to the acre. If
this is done early in the spring, he will have a lawn-like surface by
mid-summer, and a fine close turf the next season.

After this, the whole beauty of a lawn depends on frequent mowing.
Once a fortnight at the furthest, is the rule for all portions of the lawn
in the neighborhood of the house, or near the principal walks. A
longer growth than this will only leave yellow and coarser stubble
after mowing, instead of a soft velvet surface. A broad-bladed English
scythe (to be had at the shops of the seedsman), set nearly parallel to
the surface, is the instrument for the purpose, and with it a clever
mower will be able to shave within half an inch of the ground, with-
out leaving any marks. To free the surface from worm casts, ete., it
is a common practice to roll the previous evening as much as may be
mown the next day.

As the neatness of a well kept lawn depends mainly upon the man-
ner in which it is mown, and as this again can only be well done where
there are no inequalities in the ground, it follows that the surface
should be kept as smooth as possible. Before sowing a lawn, too
much pains cannot be taken to render its surface smooth and even.

After this, in the spring, before the grass starts, it should be examined,

: APPENDIX. i 527 7

and all little holes and irregularities filled up, and the same should be

looked over at any annual top-dressing that may take place. The

occasional use of a heavy roller, after rain, will also greatly tend to
remedy all defects of this nature.

Where a piece of land is long kept in lawn, it must have an ocea-
sional top-dressing every two or three years, if the soil is rich, or every
season, if it is poor. As early as possible ‘in the spring is the best
time to apply such a top-dressing, which may be a compost of any
deeayed vegetable or animal matter—heavier and more abounding with
marsh mud, ete., just in proportion to the natural lightness of the soil.
Indeed almost every season the lawn should be looked over, all weeds
taken out, and any poor or impoverished spots plentifully top-dressed,
and, if necessary, sprinkled with a little fresh seed. Wood ashes,
either fresh or leached, is also one of the most efficient fertilizers of a
lawn.

We can already, especially in the finer places on the Hudson, and
about Boston, boast of many finely kept lawns, and we hope every
day, as the better class of country residences increases; to see this

indispensable feature in tasteful grounds becoming better understood

and more universal. *

IV.
Note on professional quackery.

Landseape Gardening, like all other arts, is not free from ignorant
pretenders to knowledge, who, without a spark of appreciation for the
beautiful in nature, boldly undertake to remodel, in. what they consider
a tasteful and fashionable style, every piece of natural landscape,
whether of a simple or highly picturesque character. They succeed in
leaving behind them, on the places they attempt to improve, indubita-
ble marks of their footsteps, in a sort of labored ease, and stiff —
striving after grace; but they are pretty certain, also, to mar or
obliterate in a great degree, the natural charm of any fine situation.
We have seen one or two examples lately where a foreign soi-disant
landseape gardener has completely spoiled the simple grand beauty of *

' §28 APPENDIX.
-

a fine river residence, by cutting up the breadth of a fine lawn with a |

ridiculous effort at what he considered a very charming arrangement of

walks and groups of trees. In this case he only followed a mode-

sufficiently common and appropriate in a level inland country, like that

of Germany, from whence he introduced it, but entirely out of keeping

with the bold and lake-like features of the landscape which he thus
_made discordant. :

One of this kind of improvers was, some years ago, very cleverly
satirized by Mr. Peacock, an English reviewer of celebrity, in a comic
work entitled “ Headlong Hall.” The latter is the name of the sup-
posed seat of Lord Littlebrain, who has assembled around him during
the Christmas feastings an odd party, among whom is Mr. Milestone,
the landscape gardener, evidently a portrait of “Capability Brown.”
Mr. Milestone has been examining the estate, and, full of his projected
park, is exhibiting his portfolio of drawings of the proposed improve-
ments to his host and some of the guests. '

“ Mr. Miresronz.—This, you perceive, is the natural state of one
part of the grounds. Here is a wood, never yet touched by the finger
of taste; thick, intrivate, and gloomy. Here is a little stream, dash-
ing from stone to stone, and overshadowed with these untrimmed
boughs.

Miss Tenorina.—The sweet romantic spot! How beautifully the
birds must sing there on a summer evening.

Miss Graziosa.——Dear sister! how can you endure the horrid
thicket ?

Mr. Mitestone.—You are right, Miss Graziosa ; your taste is correct,

perfectly en régle. Now, here is the same place corrected—trimmed—
polished—decorated—adorned, Here sweeps a plantation,-in that
beautiful regular curve; there winds a gravel walk; here are parts of
tle old wood, left in these majestic circular clumps disposed at equal
distances with wonderful symmetry; there are some single shrubs
scattered in elegant profusion; here a Portugal laurel, there a juniper;
here a laurustinus, there a spruce fir; here a Jarch, there a lilac; here a
rhododendron, there an arbutus. The stream, you see, is become a
canal; the banks are perfectly smooth and green, sloping to the water’s

edge, and there is Lord Littlebrain, rowing in an elegant boat.

APPENDIX. 529

Me ,
Squire Heapione.—Magieal, faith !
Mr. Muvestoxe.—Here is another part of the ground in its natural
state. Here is a large rock, with the mountain-ash rooted in its fissures,
. overgrown, as you see, with ivy and moss, and from this part of it
bursts a little fountain, that runs bubbling down its rugged sides.

Miss Trnor1va.—O how beautiful! How I should love the melody
of that miniature cascade !

Mr. Mizestone.—Beautiful, Miss Tenorina! Hideous. Base, com-
mon, and popular. Such a thing as you may see anywhere, in wild
and mountainous districts. Now, observe the metamorphosis. Here
is the same rock, cut into the shape of a giant. In one hand he holds
a horn, through which the little fountain is thrown to a prodigious
elevation. In the other is a ponderous stone, so exactly balanced as
to be apparently ready to fall on the head of any person who may
happen to be beneath,* and there is Lord Littlebrain walking under it.

Squire Heapitone.—Miraculous, by Mahomet!

Mr. Mirestone.—This is the summit of a hill, covered, as you
perceive, with wood, and with those mossy stones scattered at random
under the trees.

Miss Tenorrna.—What a delightful spot to read in, on a summer’s
day! The air must be so pure, and the wind must sound so divinely
in the tops of those old pines!

Mr. Mitestrone.—Bad taste, Miss Tenorina. Bad taste, I assure
you. Here is the spot improved. The trees are cut down; the stones
are cleared away ; this is an octagonal pavilion, exactly on the centre
of the summit, and there you see Lord Littlebrain, on the top of the
pavilion, enjoying the prospect with a telescope.

Squire Heaptone.—Glorious, egad !

Mr. Mivestone.—Here is a rugged, mountainous road, leading
through impervious shades ; the ass and the four goats characterize a
wild uncultured scene. Here, as you perceive, it is totally changed
into a beautiful gravel road, gracefully curving through a belt of limes,
and there is Lord Littlebrain driving four-in-hand.

‘Squire Heapitone.—Egregious, by Jupiter!

Mr. Mitrstone.—Here is Littlebrain Castle, a Gothic, moss-grown

* See Knight on Taste.

530 APPENDIX.
structure, half-bosomed in trees. Near the casement of that turret
is an owl peeping from the ivy.

SQumiRE Heaptonc.—And devilish wise he looks.

Mr. Mirrestone.—Here is the new house, without a tree near it,
standing in the midst of an undulating lawn; a white, polished
angular building, reflected to a nicety in this waveless lake, and there
you see Lord Littlebrain looking out of the window.”

a's
Note on Walks and Roads.’

In our remarks on walks and roads, we omitted to say anything of
the best manner of making gravel walks. We may here state that,
where it can easily be procured, pure pit gravel is preferable to all
other materials for this purpose, as it binds almost at once, and becomes
a firm and solid mass nearly as hard as a stone floor. Beach gravel,
not having any mixture of loamy particles, does not become hard
until after a good deal of rolling, and a little loam is often mixed with
it to secure its tenacity and firmness. A very thin coat of gravel will
render a walk superior to a path which consists only of the natural
soil, and such surfacing, in our dry climate (though it frequently re-
quires renewing), is often sufficient for distant walks, or those little
used except in fine weather. But the approach road, and all walks imme-
diately about the dwelling, should be laid at least a foot thick with
gravel, to insure dryness, and a firm footing at all times and seasons.
The lower six inches is better executed when filled with small stones
—-placing the six inches of gravel on the top of these; and there are
few new places where this is not a convenient mode of getting rid of the
small stones that require to be taken out of the gardens, and various
parts of the premises undergoing improvement.

A word may be said here with regard to the color of gravel. Un-
doubtedly in almost all examples in the natural style of landscape
gardening slate-colored gravel, the kind common in nearly all parts of
the country, is much the most agreeable to the eye, being unobtrusive,

just differing sufficiently with the soil to be readily recognised as

APPENDIX. 531

artistical in its effect, while it harmonizes with the color of the ground,
and the soft tints of vegetation. A thirst after something new has
induced some persons, even in the interior, to substitute, at considera-
ble cost, the white gravel of the sea-shore for the common pit or
beach gravel. The change, we think, is, in point of taste, not a happy
one. The strong white of this gravel, as the painters would say,
disturbs the tone of a simply beautiful landscape, whose prevailing tints
are those of the broad lawn and rich overshadowing trees; and the
glare of these snowy white pebbles is not, we confess, so pleasing in
our eyes as the cooler and more quiet color of the slate or grey
gravel. When we add to this, that these sea-side pebbles seldom or
_ never pack or become firm, it would appear very evident that they are
far less suitable for walks than the common material. The only situa-
tion where this brilliant gravel seems to us perfectly in keeping, is in
the highly artificial garden of the ancient or geometric style, or in the
symmetrical terrace flower garden adjoining the house. In these
instances its striking appearance is in excellent keeping with the
expression of all the surrounding objects, and it renders more forcible
and striking the highly artiicial and artistical character of the scene;
and to such situations we would gladly see its use limited.

The labor and expense of keeping the roads and walks clean, and
free from weeds, in a place of large extent (and some of our seats
have now several miles of private roads and walks within their own
limits), is a very considerable item of the annual outlay of a country
residence. At a recent visit to Blithewood, we saw in operation there
a very simple implement, invented by R. Donaldson, Esq., the intelli-
gent proprietor of that beautiful place, which promises to be of im-
portant serviee as a labor-saving machine in cleaning roads and walks.
In Fig. 20 is shown a sketch of this implement, in use. In general
appearance it is not unlike the frame of a wheelbarrow, except that
instead of the two legs it has two iron bars, reaching down to the
earth, and connecting with a transverse blade, about three inches
wide, which is set nearly parallel with the ground. The handles of
the implement are held by a workman, like those of the common
double-tailed plough, while the horse which draws it is led or ridden
by a boy. With this implement, which is three and a half feet wide,

532 APPENDIX. |

all the weeds in the space it covers are cleared from a road or walk as "

rapidly as a horse ean walk forward, and it is only necessary to follow
with a rake and remove the weeds, and the whole is in good order.

On the lower portion of the upright bars, where they rise from the
blade, there is an edge for cutting the turf on the sides of the walk,
which performs its work very well and rapidly—the horse being care-
fully led; and it will, no doubt, answer perfectly for this purpose, in
all those walks and roads not directly around the house, or where the

» greatest nicety is not required.

The simplicity of

this machine, the very

small eost at which
it is made, and the

great saving of ex-

Vee pense and labor

; Wf , which it secures will, .
ZZ we think, render it a
valuable acquisition
to all owners of large

——S= ee = = places, or to those
({Fig. 20. Implement in use at Blithewood for cleaning

gravel roads.] wishing to keep upa °

long series of private roads and walks in the picturesque manner. For
smaller gardens and grounds, where the most scrupulous nicety is
observed, there is, of course, nothing that will supersede the common

hoe, rake, and roller.

THE END.

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